At Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis, an infant remained in a medically induced coma yesterday after being badly burned when flames erupted under an oxygen hood at Mercy Hospital in metro suburban Coon Rapids last week.
Miraculously, he's expected to make a full recovery, giving his mother the chance to finally cradle him in her arms. While he heals, hospital officials and state investigators vow to determine the cause of the accident.
"We will leave absolutely no stone unturned," said Dr. Penny Wheeler, the chief clinical officer at Allina Hospitals & Clinics, which owns Mercy. "We are going to do everything in our power to make sure that this doesn't happen anywhere, any place, ever again."
It absolutely shouldn't happen again, and the investigation deserves the top priority given to it. During the probe, infants in need of continuous oxygen therapy will be transferred from Mercy to other medical facilities. In addition, the two nurses on duty at the time of the accident have been allowed to take time off from work.
"The nurses involved, they've been pretty shaken up by this, as you can imagine," Allina public relations director David Kanihan told the News Tribune editorial page staff yesterday. "It's not a policy thing. It's a compassion thing. They've been shaken up and need some time."
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That's understandable, and hospital officials deserve credit for allowing them the time away from work. But Kanihan's statement about the "policy thing" is disturbing. While no evidence has yet emerged to suggest the nurses, or any other hospital personnel, did anything wrong, shouldn't the possibility of human error also be part of the investigation?
Kanihan disagreed. "At this point we certainly have no indication that this was anything other than just a completely unprecedented kind of accident and not anything anyone did," he said.
While he may be correct, the final judgment can only come when the investigation is completed.
The seeming disregard of the possibility of error is reminiscent of a deficiency of the Minnesota Health Department's "Adverse Events" report. The annual report details medical mishaps ranging from mixed-up prescriptions to surgery on the wrong body part. The idea is for hospitals to learn from each other's mistakes to make sure they aren't repeated.
As commendable and worthwhile as that may be, the report doesn't name the personnel involved in the mistakes. While some accidents may be the result purely of equipment failure or other factors outside of human control, many are attributable to error.
None of this is to imply that any stigma should be attached to hospital staffers involved in incidents before a final determination has been made. In a different arena, police officers involved in shootings generally are placed on leave with pay until the incidents are fully investigated. Those whose actions are deemed justified return to work with no blemish on their record.
And that's what a full investigation is supposed to determine.
