Texas hospital and patient are both to blame officials say

[TorchTheWitch]

http://news.yahoo.com/texas-hospital-reveals-how-ebola-patient-was-missed-032028517.html

Texas hospital reveals how Ebola patient was overlooked
Facility and patient are both to blame, Dallas officials say

By Jason Sickles

DALLAS – A flawed computer system and untruthfulness by the patient led medical workers to mistakenly send a sick man home instead of isolating him for Ebola, a Texas hospital announced Thursday night.

Officials with Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas said its emergency room staff followed protocol by obtaining the required information from Thomas Eric Duncan, including the fact that he had recently been in Ebola-ravaged West Africa.

But the hospital’s electronic health records system has two workflows: one for nurses and another for doctors.

{snip}

However, "When Mr. Duncan was asked if he had been around anyone who had been ill, he said that he had not."

[hedgehog]

1. BTW - a lttle off-topic, but if they thought he had the flu, why was he given a

script for an antibiotic?

[FarPoint]

2. That's a whole new problem.

He should not of been given an antibiotic for the flu. Hydration, yes..anti diarrhea script, yes....

[RandiFan1290]

3. It's how they get poor people to leave quickly. n

[hedgehog]

4. I've been thinking he got the poor man's hustle out of that ER,

but I was afraid of bringing that up!

Blaming the nurse and/or the electronic record keeping system is one thing, but wouldn't you expect someone with the grades to get into medical school and the smarts to graduate to be able to notice a foreign accent?

[dixiegrrrrl]

5. I cannot help but think his skin color might have had something to do with it.

Racism is a reality that needs to be considered.

[hedgehog]

8. Another thing I was thinking but feared to bring up.......

and racism by medical personnel isn't just a Texas problem or a Southern problem. I've heard a doctor born and raised in the North make nasty comments about poor patients and patients of color. The assumption by too many is that "those people" complain too much and/or are exaggerating their illness.

[dixiegrrrrl]

13. I had a dentist down here, back in 1998

Very nice guy, I got to know him well since I had a lot of work that needed doing.
but on one visit, he was working on a 10 year old black child who had an abscessed tooth.
And the dentist then said to me after the child and his family had left the office, that he had not bothered to prescribe any pain meds for the kid,
then made several very racist remarks to justify that decision.
I changed dentists, of course.
But it still haunts me, and I look at my medical providers much differently down here.

[hedgehog]

14. This doctor said that phenobarbitol was good enough for her patients on Medicare -

if they wanted newer anti-seizure drugs, they should have worked hard to get private insurance, i suppose!

[Barack_America]

6. No. Every physician is capable of asking, "have you traveled recently?"

And every physician is trained to do so in medical school. It's not acceptable to skip this question, particularly when dealing with a fever of unknown origin. It's on every physicians check box of questions, along with occupational exposures and sexual history.

No pass for the treating physicians from this MD.

[hedgehog]

7. I was telling my husband about this story, and it occurred to me -

the doctors don't read the nursing notes!?!?!?!?! Just who are the nurses writing the notes for; Santa Claus? Isn't the point of electronic record keeping to ensure that everyone is on the same page!?!?!?!?

[Barack_America]

10. Most notes are written for the billing department.

But, in the ED, a physician might see a patient before the nursing notes are even completed. However, all caregivers are always expected to ask all important questions themselves. The only documentation you are allowed to simply rely upon is a consultant's.

[City Lights]

9. I read yesterday that he thought the pregnant woman he

helped, who later died of Ebola, was suffering from a pregnancy-related illness.

[Barack_America]

11. That's what the family told the cab driver.

In medicine, a seizing pregnant woman is eclamptic until proven otherwise. It is unconscionable the she was turned away for hospital. But, then again, Liberia has only one maternity ward in the entire country of 4 million people.

[TorchTheWitch]

15. then why was she taken to the Ebola ward?

He may be saying that (and I can't really say I blame him) but he knew. There's a reason he lied about whether or not he'd touched anyone or helped to care for anyone that was ill before he got on the plane.

[logosoco]

12. Kind of funny that I learned people lie about things when they go to the

doctor from House, M.D.

Hopefully, along with learning about the virus itself, we are also learning about holes in the administrative part of hospitals. And perhaps there is no real system in place for an epidemic in this country. I think I already knew, from personal experience, how an ER treats someone with insurance and how they treat someone without it.