By Walter F. Roche Jr.
A patient at UPMC Mckeesport was found unresponsive in mid-December after an unidentified employee failed to notice that the batteries on the physician ordered cardiac monitor were depleted.
According to the report from the Pennsylvania Department of Health the incident occurred on Dec. 13. The patient was attached to the monitor at 12:30 p.m. and was found unresponsive at 1:26 p.m., according to the report.
The incident marks the second time in less than two months that a UPMC hospital has been cited for cardiac monitor failures. UPMC Presbyterian Shadyside was cited for a similar incident in late October.
In the McKeeesport case the report states that the employee not only failed to note the battery was depleted but waited for more than an hour to even apply the leads to the patient, who had been sent out for tests.
As a result of the findings, the state agency declared a state of "immediate jeopardy," which forces the facility to come up with an immediate plan to avoid a recurrence.
The report states the immediate jeopardy declaration was issued "when it was identified that a staff member did not follow facility policy by allowing a patient to remain disconnected from a cardiac monitoring leads on Dec. 13 at 11:20 a.m."
The leads were reappplied at 12:30 p.m."with the batteries depleted."
The unidentified worker acknowledged to the state that she did not notice the batteries were depleted.
Hospital spokesman Rick Pietzak said the facility had filed a plan of correction which was accepted by the state, but he did not respond a series of questions about the incident.
In the October event at UPMC Presbyterian Shadyside it took staff six hours before they realized a patient had been disconnected from a physician ordered cardiac monitor.
The unnamed patient's monitor stopped functioning at 10:13 p.m. on Oct. 26. But the patient was not found unresponsive until 4:14 a.m. the next day.
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