2 men in Tanzania need an operation, one a knee operation the other a brain opertaion to remove a tumour. They have the same first name. You see where this is going?
The knee guy gets the brain operation (and is now partially paralysed), the brain guy gets the knee operation and has since died - presumably from his brain tumour.
The family of the deceased has decided against sueing
Which makes a refreshing change to the stories you usually see! That said I shope the hospital gets a major kick in the ass to sort out it’s processes so that this kind of crap doesn’t happen again.
We have a system of asking for first name, last name, and birthdate. Not perfect, but so far we’ve avoided this problem as far as I know. On occasion I see two patients with the same first and last names, but at least the birthdates were different, and in most cases the races were different, and admission dates were far different.
When I recently had knee surgery, the doctor came in to talk to me before I was given any medication, and said, “So. Hi. Let’s review what we’re doing here today. We’re reconstructing your left ACL, correct? Point to it for me. Thank you. I’m going to write my initials right here, in permanent marker, and that’s where we’ll make the incision.”
I have always said that if I had to go in for something like knee surgery I would take a red sharpie and have a party with my friends the night before to decorate the other knee.
A red circle with a slash though it, write OTHER KNEE STUPID!, No cuts here, arrows pointing to the correct knee, stuff like that.
I guess now you need to decorate your head the same way.
Yep. The last several times I’ve been in for procedures to have kidney stones removed, at least one nurse, plus the anesthesiologist, have re-confirmed that what they believe is going on and what I believe is going on match. And they put an X in permanent marker on the side that the stone is on. Seems like a good plan.
However, if the state, or hospital or whoever, reached an agreeable resolution with the families without a lawsuit, then I’m happy they’ve dispensed with the greed of “let’s see how much money we can milk this for”. I just hope this prompts the hospital to put measures in place to ensure this doesn’t happen again.
That’s the policy at our hospital too. Last time I assisted with an ocular injection, we even reviewed between the doctor, the patient, and I as to the eye it was supposed to go into.
Like tdn said, we’re also supposed to double-check more than just the name - either the date of birth or the medical record number should be confirmed as well, with the patient or off the chart/inpatient bracelet, depending on the situation. (I never refer to patients by just their first name anyway, unless they tell me otherwise.)
My dad goes to the Mayo Clinic, and there’s another guy there with the same first name, last name the same with one extra letter, AND a Social Security number that’s very close to identical. It’s actually quite creepy. We have never met the guy.
An old friend once need to get a prescription. It got mixed up with that of an elderly man. I guess the pharmacist didn’t really care about the difference between Andrea and Andrew. (Same last name.) My friend really didn’t have a use for heart medication, but we really wanted to see the look on Andrew’s face as he tried to figure out how to swallow a diaphram.