He insisted that she call the doctor to get an order for blood work. ![]() He asked the nurse about his last serum sodium level and she said it was from two days before, but everything was fine. I suggested that, if this happened, he should ask the nursing staff when his son’s serum sodium level had last been checked, and if it had been more than a day, to firmly request that they get in order to re-check it.Ībout a month later, my friend called and told me that within 48 hours of our initial conversation, he noticed that his son was behaving oddly. After all, family member will always know when a relative is behaving abnormally more quickly than a healthcare provider could notice. Our expert witness explained that altered mental status is one of the earliest indicators that there could be a neurological problem requiring urgent physician attention.Īlthough I felt that it would unlikely happen, I told my friend that of his son started acting out of character, he should immediately tell the nursing staff. Medical professionals describe it as altered mental status. Her parents described it as acting out of character. One additional fact was that a key finding in the first case was that the teenaged patient began acting strangely. I then told him about the first case that I wrote about above. I then told him that, while I did not want to disturb him, I wanted to tell him the story about what happened to another patient at the Memorial Hermann facility next door, under somewhat similar circumstances. Over the course of our discussion, I learned that his son had experienced a head trauma, including brain hemorrhaging, and had been in the hospital for two weeks at Memorial Hermann Hospital in the Texas Medical Center.Īs I always do, I recommended that a family member should stay with his son 24/7 until he was safely discharged. The conversation started with his questions about how the auto insurance policies would work. Within six months of the resolution of the case, a friend from church called to discuss his adult son’s recent car wreck. ![]() She survived, but with a severe brain injury. In this case, the diagnosis of hyponatremia was so delayed that the patient had an impending brain herniation before treatment started. Left untreated, the brain will swell and swell until it herniates out the back of the skull, causing death. The expert explained that any patient with a head trauma or space-occupying lesion within the cranial cavity has a particularly-high risk of developing hyponatremia. ![]() Hyponatremia inexpensive to treat, but requires careful attention from nurses and physicians. In the course of the lawsuit, we retained an internal medicine physician as an expert witness on the issue of hyponatremia, a condition in which a patient has abnormally low serum sodium levels. Unfortunately, this teenager ended up with a severe brain injury, and I filed a medical malpractice lawsuit on behalf of her family in order to get funds to take care of her. The family recalls being assured that after a number of weeks of antibiotic treatment, the young lady would be on her way back to school and a normal life. Of course, that abscess needed addressed, and the surgical team at the hospital did a great job in draining it. She was a bright, athletic student who had a sinus infection that spread to her brain and formed an abscess. ![]() In the first incident, I represented the family of a teenager who was treated at Children’s Memorial Hermann Hospital. The topic of sentinel events reminds me of two incidents that happened several years ago. Adding that experience to what I have seen as a Houston, Texas medical malpractice attorney, I realize that some hospitals do a better job than others. The Joint Commission calls this the Sentinel Event Policy, with the idea that a sentinel event is so serious that they require immediate investigation and response.īy definition, a sentinel event is a patient safety event that reaches a patient, resulting in death, permanent harm, or severe temporary harm and intervention required to sustain life.Īs a former hospital administrator, I recognize the importance of a hospital culture that investigates and learns from patient safety incidents, rather than one that sweeps them under the rug. In 1996, it adopted a formal policy to require hospitals to learn from serious events that may be related to patient safety. The Joint Commission is the oldest and best-known organization that accredits hospitals.
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