Hospital Placed Patients in Danger

By Walter F. Roche Jr.

A 279-bed Pennsylvania hospital put two dozen patients in danger by failing to monitor the humidity in treatment rooms where surgeries and other procedures were being performed.
According to a recently released report on the Geisinger Wyoming Valley Hospital in Wilkes-Barre the surgeries and procedures went ahead in the Valley Medical Building even when the humidity was well above the recommended level of 30 to 60 percent set by the hospital itself.
"Based on the seriousness of the non-compliance and the effect on patient outcomes the facility failed to substantially comply" with state requirements, the report states.
Calling the excess humidity a "structural failure" the report states that each instance should have been reported to the state agency.
"The hospital must be constructed and maintained to ensure the safety of the patient," the report states.
Hospital officials did not respond to questions concerning the report. The hospital did however file a corrective action plan including new procedures to ensure compliance.
The treating physicians, the inspectors from the state Health Department stated, failed to make note of the excess humidity in 24 of 24 patient records reviewed. And the state reviewers noted the treating physician should have been informed of the humidity and then made a decision on whether to cancel the procedure. The corrective action plan calls for staff to inform the doctor or other provider of excess humidity levels prior to the procedure.
The high humidity, the report notes, increases the risk of infection.
The procedures included plastic surgery, general surgery, dental treatments and eye surgery.
The humidity levels reached as high as 80 percent. In two of the treatment rooms no temperatures or humidity levels were even recorded. The corrective action plan calls for the installation of temperature and humidity monitors in those two rooms.
The inspectors also found that two of the rooms had never been approved by the state for use in performing dental procedures.
The facility "failed to ensure a clean environment" in four treatment rooms, the state surveyors concluded, noting dust and debris seen during the inspection.
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