LA Hospital Fined For Quaid Twins Overdose

LOS ANGELES — A Los Angeles hospital was fined $25,000 by state health regulators for giving overdoses of a blood thinner to three infants including the newborn twins of Dennis Quaid.

The California Department of Public Health cited Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and 10 other hospitals Thursday for violations that caused or were "likely to cause, serious injury or death to patients."

Cedars spokesman Richard Elbaum said the hospital has cooperated with state investigators and intends to pay the fine.

The fine against Cedars-Sinai comes two months after the state issued a 20-page report blaming the hospital for giving Quaid's premature twins and another unidentified baby 1,000 times the intended dosage of heparin in November. All three children recovered, but two needed a drug that reverses the effects of heparin.

The hospital has since apologized to the patients' families and said it has taken steps to provide more training to staff and review all policies and procedures involving high-risk medications.

The preventable error occurred because a pharmacy technician stored the higher heparin doses in the wrong place and a nurse who administered the drug to the babies failed to verify the amount.

After the mix-up, Quaid and his wife, Kimberly, sued heparin maker Baxter Healthcare Corp., accusing the company of negligence in packaging different doses of the product in similar vials with blue backgrounds.

Comments

[GenRom]

I watched Dennis and Kimberly's interview on 60 minutes last Sunday. The hospital didn't even notify the couple once the twins were obviously in a life threatening situation. The Quaids found out that the twin's lives were in danger the NEXT MORNING when the Quaids went to the hospital for a regular visit. It is beyond my comprehension that the PARENTS were not notified of the error and the serious condition of the twins. What if these babies had died? Would the parents have known the entire truth? In the interview, Dennis and Kimberly said that the hospital's Risk Management representative was involved in the situation and present by the time the couple arrived. Risk Management?....the hospital was obviously more concerned about covering it's ass than notifying the parents. This is scary stuff?

Now, the hospital was fined only $25,000? A drop in the bucket, huh? I'm certainly not an attorney and I suppose you can't sue for what COULD HAVE happened, but $25,000 is nothing. Hopefully, the twins will not suffer any long-term effects. Thank God the Quaids did not have to bury their babies.

[Brinkman]

Though the Quaids' anger at this situation is entirely justified, the blame for this near-tragedy lies entirely with the hospital staff. Proper procedure for administration of medication involves 3 SEPARATE checks to assure that the proper medication and dosage is being given (they drilled this into us continually in nursing school). That the labels of these two dosages of medication is similar is entirely irrelevant. I am no defender of pharaceutical companies, but the labels clearly states dosage, so the drug company has no liability in this. Problems of this sort are avoidable by diligent nursing.

[LanguagePolice]

And there's the "doublecheck by another nurse" to think about too. At first the Quaids supposedly weren't going to sue the nurses. I wonder what happens now.

[grisgris]

Both heparin doses, the one the babies got and the ones they should have gotten, come in identical sized bottles with very similar blue labels. Some time ago, after other patient deaths were reported due to similar mix-ups at other hospitals, the FDA ordered Baxter Healthcare Corp. to change the labels on the two drugs so they would be more noticeably different. The company changed the labels (one is now red) but failed to recall the hundreds of thousands of heparin doses still being used by health care facilities. While I agree with your statement that "(P)roblems of this sort are avoidable by diligent nursing", I believe the drug company, once they realized that deaths were occurring due to the label similarities, should have recalled the heparin bottles still out there. The fact that they changed the labels demonstrates they knew it was a serious problem.

[antworks]

Thank The Lord that these children lived! This is a prime example why the attempts by state and congressional lawmakers to limit malpractice monitary damages are wrong. These children could have died. The problem could have easily have been avoided. When mistakes such as these happen someone should be made to pay, big time, so all medical professionals (and pharmaceuticals) will be more careful. If it had happened to my newborn someone would be getting their butt sued off! (And, who can say if there won't be some long term, latent, damage to these kids?).

[LanguagePolice]

"And, who can say if there won't be some long term, latent, damage to these kids?"

Just about any doctor and most nurses can say that there won't, not from heparin at least. But your point is taken- it could have been much worse. And now we're seeing adulterated heparin being imported from China- your long-term, latent damage will no doubt happen soon, just from something else.