Date: 1/15/2009
WASHINGTON (AP) — The chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee said Thursday he would investigate software glitches at the VA that put patient safety at risk, calling the problems a sign of a “dangerous lack of accountability.”
“VA continues to discover problems and attempts to fix them quietly and internally, and then downplays them as inconsequential and nonthreatening,” said Rep. Bob Filner, D-Calif. “No one expects new software to operate perfectly, but confidence must be inherent in any electronic medical records system.”
The Associated Press reported Wednesday that patients at VA health centers were given incorrect doses of drugs, had needed treatments delayed and may have been exposed to other medical errors due to the glitches that showed faulty displays of their electronic health records.
There is no evidence that any patient was harmed. But the glitches, which began in August and lingered until last month, were not disclosed to patients by the VA even though they sometimes involved infusions of drugs such as heparin for up to 11 hours longer than necessary, according to internal documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. Heparin, a blood-thinner, can be life-threatening in excessive doses.
The VA’s recent glitches involved medical data — vital signs, lab results, active meds — that sometimes popped up under another patient’s name on the computer screen. Records also failed to clearly display a doctor’s stop order for a treatment, leading to reported cases of unnecessary drug doses.
Documents obtained Thursday by the AP show the glitches may have extended further. In some cases, VA medical centers reported that automated dispensing machines sometimes printed out the wrong patient name when filling prescriptions for outpatients, according to an internal VA memo dated Nov. 5.
“VA bureaucrats consistently refuse to provide necessary information regarding the serious problems that affect veterans and this pattern of secrecy is disconcerting and does enormous harm,” Filner said. “Oversight of this incident will continue.”
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.
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Lmora says:
I live in Las Vegas. About seven years ago, my husband and I relocated to Las Vegas. The Doctor and Nurses here, are a joke! The healcare here, sucks. My husband was admitted to Desert Springs Hospital on December 02, 2008, for shortness of breath. He died on December 25,2008 of multi-organ failure! There was nothing wrong with his brain, but the Doctors kept him on sedation medication. I begged them to take him off the sedation medication, but they refused.I wanted to speak to my husband. As it turns out, my husband had Pneumonia. A Nurse said he was getting better one day and that his fever was down and his chest x-ray looked better. The next day, the Doctor said he wanted to put him on Dialysis. I told the Doctor that my husband does not have anything wrong with his kidneys. The Doctor stated that my husbands kidneys shut down. My husband was on a respirator and they were going to take out the tubes from his mouth. The Doctor put a trach in, but he also did a biopsy of my husbands stomach. That was without my or my husbands permission! First of all, you do not do unnecessary surgery on a patient that has Pneumonia. I went to the local news and they asked me for proof. I have no proof because I am the only family my husband had.I contacted a few Lawyers here and they do not want to be bothered. The kicker is, about December 23,2008, a Nurse told me they were giving my husband HEPARIN. I had no idea that the HEPARIN was being RE-CALLED because it was contaminated! I found out on January 19.2009, when I recieved an email that stated Heparin was being RE-CALLED because the vials were contaminated. One of the causes of a HEPARIN death is; Multi-organ failure. That is what is written on my husbands death certificate. I do not know what these Lawyers are afraid of to take on a new case. But I will make it know worldwide what they did to my husband, if it kills me in the process.
Lmora
30th January 2009 at 3:55 am
Lmora's blog says:
Just yesterday, I went down to the courthouse for an order to pull my husbands Medical Records, When I met a Lady that was there for the same thing. She too,was pulling Medical Records for this same Hospital. Which proves that I am not alone in this, but something has to be done about these Lax, Uncaring Doctors and Nurses. I think that if more people came forward and spoke out, these Doctors would get on the ball and think before they decide to use a patient as an experiment. Sure, I am going to do all I can to prove that they did wrong by my husband. I just hope I find the proof I need, but even so, if I do Sue the pants off of the Doctors, it will not be for the money, it will be for Justice. Because all the money in the world will not bring my husband back. Maybe if I can have this Hospital shut down, it may save some lives. Another thing I forgot to mention was that all the patients in the ICU Unit had precaution signs posted at their doors, because it seems that they were all getting MRSA, which is another serious thing in Hospitals. They even told me my husband had MRSA one day, and then, the Doctor denied it. He did show me that it said ‘negative’ on my husband chart, but someone was lying at that Hospital or covering up. That is one important reason why half these Hospitals should be shut down. And if I find the proof, they will be!
30th January 2009 at 12:47 pm