[ RadSafe ] Fwd: Medical Incident

[William Lipton]

It seems clear that this hospital "didn't get the memo."

Bill
On Aug 30, 2013 12:08 PM, "Chris Alston" <achris1999 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Bill
>
> Actually, since the ascendancy of the Internet, I think that we do
> hear about most of these events, and more or less in real-time, at
> least as they relate to the use of *RAM* in clinical medicine.
> Fortunately, the incidence of errors such as this one is very low,
> even in diagnostic nuclear medicine, and trending down.  Comparable
> errors in therapeutic nuclear medicine are extremely rare.
>
> In  general, and especially in hospitals, and large group practices,
> people are working very hard to cut the number of medical errors,
> whether in radiology, surgery, the use of medications, etc., to the
> bone (as it were).  Increasingly, hospitals have a zero-tolerance
> attitude towards medical errors.  The Joint Commission gets tougher
> about quality assurance every year.  Besides, most forward-looking
> institutions now take pride in working to be as safe a place as
> possible for patients.  A lot of this is accomplished through the use
> of time-outs at the beginning of procedures, and checklists, similar
> to those used by pilots.  The Magnet Nursing program of the ANA has
> also, IMHO, contributes greatly to the improvement of care-giving to
> patients, and particularly to reducing medical errors.
>
> Cheers
> cja
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: William Lipton <doctorbill34 at gmail.com>
> Date: Fri, Aug 30, 2013 at 11:13 AM
> Subject: [ RadSafe ] Medical Incident
> To: radsafe <radsafe at health.phys.iit.edu>Fortunately, the patient
> wasn't harmed, other than having to undergo a
> repeat test.
> What bother's me is:   (1) the frequency of this type of event, and (2) the
> lack of any meaningful NRC penalty.  There's no excuse for treating the
> wrong patient.  Can these folks even spell "QA"?  The NRC seems to have a
> double standard, with medical licensees getting a slap on the wrist for
> incidents which would hit a power reactor with a minimum Level 3 violation.
>  What's even worse:  The only reason this was reported is that it involved
> a NRC license.  What else goes on that we never hear about?
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