Patient Dies At WellSpan York Hospital ER - Left Unattended For Over An Hour

Nurses Headlines

Published

YORK, Pa. - Officials have confirmed the death of an ER patient at WellSpan York Hospital in August after the person was left unattended in the waiting room for more than an hour.

https://www.ydr.com/story/news/2019/10/13/patient-dies-er-wellspan-york-hospital-what-we-know-now/3971892002/

Specializes in Critical Care.

I'm not really seeing any clear cut negligence here, its unfortunate, but not negligent.

Oh I don't know...

From above linked article:

"Security camera footage showed that the patient had his oxygen discontinued when he were transferred from the ambulance stretcher to the wheelchair.

And while the patient's vital signs were taken by a nursing assistant, the pivot nurse never spoke with the patient.

At no time was any staff observed to complete rounding on the patient as per their policy.

The report shows that two other patients, with less-severe ailments, were triaged, examined and discharged while the patient in question was still in the waiting room."

https://www.ydr.com/story/news/2019/10/13/patient-dies-er-wellspan-york-hospital-what-we-know-now/3971892002/

If Wellspan-York had nothing to hide why did they wait > 24 hours to alert coroner of death? Also why the flurry of changes to ER nursing service including suddenly filling several positions with travelers?

1 Votes

Kind of sounds like they had a lot of holding/boarding, not enough staff and one person doing two roles = things fell through the cracks (which sound substantial). And the facility is reviewing their standard work now to make sure all staff understand how to follow it, and are also making sure the staff understand the importance of documentation. Just like V, they know how to roll with things go wrong! Right after they didn't report this, they took it "extremely seriously." The nurses have been dealt with and are no doubt in trouble for not doing everything according to policy.

??

+ Add a Comment