Seven California hospitals face a combined $775,000 in fines for risking patient safety, including delayed emergency treatment, the California Department of Public Health reported yesterday.
Memorial Medical Center in Modesto, St. Mary's Medical Center in San Francisco and UCSF Medical Center each faced two violations.
At Memorial, surgery performed on the wrong patient resulted in a $75,000 fine, in addition to a $50,000 penalty for delayed life-saving care after surgery, reported The Modesto Bee.
St. Mary's, which faces fines of $75,000 for leaving a foreign object in a surgical patient and $100,000 for failing to monitor respiratory status after drug administration, also received a fine in August for patient safety violations.
This marks the first administrative penalty for Placentia Linda Hospital. Medical and nursing staff failed to report and the hospital failed to investigate alleged sexual assault by a doctor, resulting in a $50,000 fine, according to the health department.
But hospitals in California aren't the only facilities failing to prevent patient safety risks. Despite continued efforts to improve, hospitals in Minnesota are still committing preventable mistakes. Of the 314 reportable errors in a 12-month period, 14 involved patient deaths and 89 resulted in severe injuries, FierceHealthcare reported last week.
For more:
- here's the statement from the health department
- read the Modesto Bee article