Staffers called ambulance to take patient to ER from another unit
The Associated Press
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press
FORT WORTH — A patient at a hospital’s mental health unit died after staffers called for an ambulance to take him to the emergency room instead of summoning doctors in the nearby main hospital.
The ambulance took 15 minutes to arrive, while a hospital emergency team could have been at his side in about five minutes.
John Peter Smith Hospital was fined $7,500 last month after the Texas Department of State Health Services found it violated state law, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported in Friday editions. Its policy for emergency care at the psychiatric facility amounted to performing CPR and calling 911, which was flawed, state investigators reported.
Resuscitation services offered at the main hospital should have been available at Trinity Springs Pavilion, said Carrie Williams, a spokeswoman for the health services department.
The hospital had argued against a penalty and tried to prove — by timing the transportation of a mannequin on a stretcher — that the patient would have received care faster from an ambulance team. The hospital’s simulation showed that taking the stretcher to the ER took nearly two minutes longer, but the state still fined the hospital — but less than the initial $15,000 amount.
“They realized we truly had the patient’s safety in mind,” said Neal Adams, the hospital district’s general counsel.
Neither the hospital nor the state would identify the patient, citing privacy laws.
But according to his family, the patient was Jerry Hammer of Arlington, a Trinity Springs patient and former Temple University professor. The family believes Hammer, 62, may have had Alzheimer’s disease or dementia at the time of his death.
His family had been puzzled about a $500 ambulance bill, especially since Hammer was living about 360 feet from the hospital when someone walking by his room in August noticed he had collapsed. Staffers found that he was in acute cardiopulmonary distress.
Deborah French, Hammer’s niece, said the hospital told her that calling an ambulance was normal procedure but never said how much time elapsed before it arrived.
“I think it’s pretty sad when you’re in a hospital and you have to call an ambulance for emergency services,” she said.
One possible problem is that ambulance services may assume that a hospital patient is already receiving medical attention.
“The assumption that our system makes in that case is that it’s not as urgent for us to get there because it’s not like you’re at home and there’s no trained medical person there,” said Jack Eades, executive director of MedStar.
After the state investigated, the hospital changed its policy so that patients found in acute cardio-pulmonary distress in its 70-bed mental health unit will have initial lifesaving treatments there and then be moved.