Advertise
Resources
Member, Beacon International Group, Ltd.
PROVIDENCE, R.I.—The Rhode Island Department of Health fined Rhode Island Hospital $150,000 and ordered that the hospital install video cameras in every operating room after it had its fifth wrong-site surgery since 2007.
The department of health notified RIH on Monday of the fine and the need to install video cameras. It was the second time the department fined the Providence, R.I.-based hospital, which is Rhode Island’s largest hospital and a teaching hospital for Brown University’s Alpert Medical School. The first time, RIH was fined $50,000 after brain surgeons operated on the wrong parts of the brains of three patients in 2007, health officials said.
In a letter to RIH, David R. Gifford, Rhode Island’s director of health, said the department discovered several problems in the hospital’s surgical program in its latest wrong-site procedure. The surgery was on a patient who was supposed to have elective surgery on two different fingers of the right hand, but both procedures were performed on the same finger.
In response to the deficiencies, RIH needs to have a licensed clinical professional observe all surgeries, including surgical-site marking and time-out procedures, for at least one year.
“Rhode Island Hospital’s decision to not follow recently established statewide protocols designed to prevent medical errors is of grave concern,” said Mr. Gifford in a statement. “This pattern of surgical errors is completely unacceptable and must be corrected to protect the safety of all patients.”