Patient advocates demand accountability for medical error in RaDonda Vaught case (The Tennessean)

Summary

Earlier this year in March, a nurse from Vanderbilt University, RaDonda Vaught, was found guilty of criminally negligent homicide and gross neglect of a patient. In 2017, Vaught gave 75-year-old Charlene Murphey the incorrect medication. Murphey died as a result.

Charlene Murphey’s tragic death highlights the failures of healthcare organisations and their leadership to be trustworthy as well as a fractured and weakened accountability system for patient safety in the United States.

Content

Patients for Patient Safety (PFPSUS) is a network of people and organisations aligned with the World Health Organization (WHO) and focused on making healthcare safe in the United States. In this article they explain why Vanderbilt University should be held accountable for their faults.

PFPSUS have requested that the U.S. Office of the Inspector General investigate Vanderbilt, the Tennessee Department of Health and CMS to determine if they followed appropriate laws and procedures related to the reporting of this error.

Among the questions posed are:  

• Did the Tennessee Department of Health take appropriate legal action when Vanderbilt did not report the error? 
• Did Vanderbilt commit Medicare fraud when they attributed the cause of death as “natural” on the death certificate? 
• Did CMS appropriately impose any consequences within their powers that addressed Vanderbilt’s manipulation of patient data and failure to report the error?  
• Did Vanderbilt’s actions and omissions violate CMS Conditions of Participation and if so, why weren’t actions taken?