R.I. Hospital fined in 3rd wrong-site surgery this year

PROVIDENCE – The R.I. Department of Health said last week that it has issued a reprimand to Rhode Island Hospital and fined the facility $50,000 for its third wrong-site surgery this year.
The surgery, which occurred Nov. 23, involved an 82-year-old patient in the neurosurgical intensive-care unit, the hospital said in a statement. A resident was performing a bedside procedure, and “prior to entering the skull, it was determined that the procedure was being performed on the wrong side and it was immediately stopped.”
The patient received one stitch to close the wound, the hospital said, and the procedure was then performed on the correct side, with “good results.”
The hospital is already under scrutiny from the state because of a surgery July 30 involving an 86-year-old man who underwent a wrong-side craniotomy. A review of that incident had revealed, according to a compliance order issued to the hospital, that “hospital surgical safeguards are deficient and that some systems were not followed.”
The error on Nov. 23 was the hospital’s fourth wrong-site surgery in six years, according to the Department of Health. The hospital said that “corrective action and counseling have occurred with all the individuals involved,” but the state still issued a new compliance order.