3rd St. Luke's Facility Cited

By Walter F. Roche Jr.

An Easton hospital has been cited for violating state and federal regulations when the same syringe was mistakenly used on two different patients on the same day instead of being discarded after a single use.
The recently released report from the Pennsylvania Health Department states that on June 5 two patients at St. Luke's Hospital in Northampton County were injected with the same syringe when they were undergoing a gastrointestinal procedure.
St. Luke's Anderson campus, a 108-bed facility, is the third facility in the Saint Luke's University Health Network to be cited by the state health agency in recent weeks. Health system officials did not respond to requests for comment on either report.
According to the latest report a syringe of propofol was refilled after being used on one patient and then used by another anesthesia provider on a second patient.
"We had a medication error in the GI lab," the report quotes from hospital records. "We had one provider who never refills a propofol syringe and one who does.
"The one relieving assumed that the full propofol must be clean," the report states, adding that the assumption was wrong.
"It was used and refilled," the report states.
The facility was also cited for failing to notify family members when patients were admitted and failure to comply with restrictions on the use of restraints.
In a plan of correction filed with the state, the hospital said it would institute a re-education program to ensure that syringes will be discarded after a single use. An audit system will also be implemented to ensure compliance, the corrective action plan states.
In another recent report two Saint Luke's facilities in Carbon County were cited for failing to implement a plan of correction issued in response to an earlier critical report. Deficiencies included failure to remove items that could be used by patients to commit suicide.
Contact: wfrochejr999@gmail.com