By Bill Santamour November 08, 2011

Nurses closely monitor medication use, reduce readmissions.

Marcy left the hospital with a lot of paper work, a container of pills and an appointment to see her physician the following month. The instructions were thorough and the discharge staff were patient and pleasant. But Marcy was still a little weak from the infection that had landed her in the hospital in the first place, and flustered by the whole experience. And, she had to admit, these days she got confused more easily than she had in the previous 83 years of her life; neither her memory nor her sight were what they used to be.

A few days later, Marcy mistakenly thought she had forgotten to take her morning medication and swallowed a day's worth all at once. The overdose nearly killed her, and she landed back in the hospital.

Her experience is not unusual, but with the renewed emphasis on improving quality of care and reducing readmissions, it has to become a lot more rare.

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Michael J. Sacopulos, Esq.

A Louisiana physician was fired for diverting Demerol from his patients and reporting to work under the influence. Upon the dismissal, a colleague wrote a letter of recommendation for the physician. The discharged physician took his glowing recommendation and found a new job thousands of miles away in Washington State.

About a year into working at this new job, the physician was caught “under the influence.” Further, he was caught after he failed to properly administer anesthesia and his patient fell into a permanent vegetative state, according to court records. The patient’s family filed a malpractice lawsuit against the physician and the medical center where the surgery took place. The case was settled with the physician paying $1 million and the medical center paying $7.5 million.

For the full article please go here.