Med Headlines - A Rhode Island Hospital was fined $50,000 this week for its third wrong-site surgery this year. The surgery, which occurred last week, involved an 82 year old patient in the neurosurgical intensive care unit. A resident was performing a bedside procedure and “prior to entering the skull” it was determined that the procedure was being peformed on the wrong side and, according to the hospital, the procedure was then immediately stopped. The patient received one stitch to close the wound on the wrong side and the procedure was then peformed on the right side with “good results” according to the hospital.

Unfortunately, the incident comes at a time when the hospital was already under scrutiny from the state because of a July surgery involving an 86 year old man who underwent a wrong-side craniotomy. A review of that incicent found “the hospital safeguards are deficient and some systems were not followed.”

According to reports from the Department of Health, the error on Friday was the hospital’s fourth wrong-site surgery in six years. The hospital said that “corrective action and counseling have occurred, with all the individuals involved” but the state still issued a new compliance order this week.

“We are extremely concerned about this continuing pattern,” said Dr. David R. Gifford, the state health director, in a news release. “We have not seen an adequate response in the hospital’s system and protocols since the last compliance order was issued. While the hospital has made improvements in the operating room, they have not extended these changes to the rest of the hospital.”