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MEDICAL MALPRACTICE
3. Inadequate monitoring (malfunctioning, missing)
Facilities that are surgery-driven don't always concern themselves with other equipment, as long as the surgical equipment is up to date. But as facilities take on more difficult cases, more patients with comorbidities, more patients who are older and obese, they're creating a recipe for trouble. If you're not monitoring properly, you're really just winging it. And by the time you figure out something has gone wrong, it can be too late to intervene.
4. Alarms are muted
This, of course, is a cardinal sin, and everybody knows it. Still, a lot of people who've been practicing a long time don't want to hear alarms. So they mute them, thinking they won't be the ones who are susceptible to human error. But we're all only human. The alarms are a backup to alert you if there's a trend or a change of any kind that might need to be addressed. Sadly, "alarm fatigue" has become so common that it's become a new National Patient Safety Goal initiative. I consider it malpractice to turn off an alarm, and you can be sure risk managers and plaintiffs' lawyers do, too.
5. View of the patient is obstructed or not properly maintained
This generally happens in post-operative settings. During surgery, the anesthesia practitioner is directly observing the patient and of course the surgeon is monitoring the surgery. But then the patient gets whisked back to recovery and any number of things can happen. It's not uncommon for the patient to have pain and be given a narcotic, making constant visual contact that much more important. But staffers sometimes pull the curtain around a patient, out of concern for privacy. Never do that early in the recovery. Sometimes there's an emergency or problem in another area and suddenly everyone's atten-
