Wrong IV Administered at Wilkes Barre Hospital

By Walter F. Roche Jr.

A patient at a Wilkes Barre hospital was given an IV prescribed for another patient and even after the error was uncovered the patient's doctor was not informed.
That was the finding of an August state licensure inspection at the PAM (Post Acute Medical) Specialty Hospital, a 36-bed facility located within the Wilkes Barre General Hospital.
The IV mixup was only one of several medication errors turned up in the five-day inspection of the hospital in early August. And the same facility was cited twice in 2019 for other violations including a lack of adequate staff.
In the recent report one patient had been prescribed a five percent dextrose in a saline solution at a rate of 100 milligrams per hour.
A second patient had been prescribed a 5 percent dextrose solution in water administered at 50 milligrams per hour.
On Nov. 4 of last year at a shift change at 10 p.m. a nurse discovered that the first patient was getting an IV with the second patients's information on it.
Hospital records showed the patient getting the wrong IV had been administered 80 milligrams of wrong IV before it was discovered.
The report states that despite a hospital requirement that serious medication errors had to be reported to the physician of the patient affected, the records showed no documentation that the notification took place.
In addition the error was not recorded in the patient's record.
In another case, the report states that a doctor's order to increase the dosage of a drug was not implemented. And again the patient's doctor was not informed, according to the report.
In the same inspection state surveyors found that a crash cart had three expired vials of sodium chloride.
The hospital filed a plan of correction calling for re-education of staff on the requirements for reporting medication errors "that have harmed or have the potential to harm the patient."
The hospital also implemented a plan to ensure that expired medications were removed from crash carts.
Hospital officials did not respond to questions about the report.
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