Comments on: Dennis Quaid Recounts Twins' Drug Ordeal

Actor Tells 60 Minutes' Steve Kroft Medical Errors Kill Thousands

[pulsecolo]

To everyone who has suffered a loss or bad outcome in healthcare,

If you would like to post your stories on a new storyboard that is under construction, please email me at [e-mail] We do not name names or places, but experiences are great teaching tools for others. Hearing stories from others will save lives.

[lordlorin]

To all the people out there that have writen in saying enough with this store. You are all ignorant to the problems in the medical industry. Someday you will be thankful to Dennis Quaid for helping to get the ball rolling on this problem. My husband was given to much blood thinner and he would of been given more if he didn''t stop them. The bottom of his feet filled with blood. His right foot ended up bleeding all over this hospital bed and floor. My husband ended up with gangrene in his foot. The end result was that they said they couldn''t do anything for him. They said go home take morphine and wait to die. It killed him. I have dealt with the Dr.''s that just want to promote drugs so they can get there free gifts from the drugs companies. Some of you people have no clue on what''s go on out there. You better start finding out all you can before your a victom of it.

[neverclearon]

I agree 100% with "patientsafe." As long as the healthcare industry as a whole is not held accountable (ie in the billfold) this type of negligence on not one but three of the hospitals staff, will continue to rise.
I almost lost my own daughter at 18 months due to a continuing misdiagnoses of her condition (which turned out to be Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever.) I heard Chicken Pox, Hand Foot Mouth Virus, etc. I am not an idiot, the symptoms (105 fever that would not break, whole body rash that looked like blood coming to the surface-not pox) did not fit their diagnoses. I carried her into the doctors office when she couldn''t lift her head off the pillow and demanded they re-examine her symptoms and come up with a more viable one because she was getting worse day by day. Finally they "listened" to me and came up with the right diagnoses (later confirmed by test.)
Pay attention, watch every move, question every medication and never leave anyone you care about in a hospital if they aren''t in a condition to watch out for their self because it is all about the money now a days.
I think there should be a limit to the amount of patients doctors see in their office. They just shuffle them in, shuffle them out. There should be standardized costs of procedures. So much more than I can put into this post. Above all, NO ONE is a God, trust your instincts and question everything and anything that doesn''t make sense.

[neverclearon]

I agree 100% with "patientsafe." As long as the healthcare industry as a whole is not held accountable (ie in the billfold) this type of negligence on not one but three of the hospitals staff, will continue to rise.
I almost lost my own daughter at 18 months due to a continuing misdiagnoses of her condition (which turned out to be Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever.) I heard Chicken Pox, Hand Foot Mouth Virus, etc. I am not an idiot, the symptoms (105 fever that would not break, whole body rash that looked like blood coming to the surface-not pox) did not fit their diagnoses. I carried her into the doctors office when she couldn''t lift her head off the pillow and demanded they re-examine her symptoms and come up with a more viable one because she was getting worse day by day. Finally they "listened" to me and came up with the right diagnoses (later confirmed by test.)
Pay attention, watch every move, question every medication and never leave anyone you care about in a hospital if they aren''t in a condition to watch out for their self because it is all about the money now a days.
I think there should be a limit to the amount of patients doctors see in their office. They just shuffle them in, shuffle them out. There should be standardized costs of procedures. So much more than I can put into this post. Above all, NO ONE is a God, trust your instincts and question everything and anything that doesn''t make sense.

[neverclearon]

I agree 100% with "patientsafe." As long as the healthcare industry as a whole is not held accountable (ie in the billfold) this type of negligence on not one but three of the hospitals staff, will continue to rise.
I almost lost my own daughter at 18 months due to a continuing misdiagnoses of her condition (which turned out to be Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever.) I heard Chicken Pox, Hand Foot Mouth Virus, etc. I am not an idiot, the symptoms (105 fever that would not break, whole body rash that looked like blood coming to the surface-not pox) did not fit their diagnoses. I carried her into the doctors office when she couldn''t lift her head off the pillow and demanded they re-examine her symptoms and come up with a more viable one because she was getting worse day by day. Finally they "listened" to me and came up with the right diagnoses (later confirmed by test.)
Pay attention, watch every move, question every medication and never leave anyone you care about in a hospital if they aren''t in a condition to watch out for their self because it is all about the money now a days.
I think there should be a limit to the amount of patients doctors see in their office. They just shuffle them in, shuffle them out. There should be standardized costs of procedures. So much more than I can put into this post. Above all, NO ONE is a God, trust your instincts and question everything and anything that doesn''t make sense.

[mempharm]

There needs to be mandatory standardized education for pharmacy technicians across the country. Are you aware that people can be hired off the street with no education to fill medication orders and mix IV''s in hospitals? The supervision of a pharmacist may not catch every technician error.

[patientsafe]

As long as the Healthcare sector will be without safety features such as a Black Box, FAA and NASA equivalents, errors and complications will persist, because they generate significant revenues.
Follow the Money !
Did you ask Cedars Sinai if, the intensive care to save these twins was billed to their medical insurance company ?
Did you find out how Cedars benefits financially from preventable errors, on a daily basis ?
The Code of Silence will persist as long as " Killing the Messenger " will be most cost effective method to resolve problems.
The only way to protect physicians, nurses, pharmacists,... who stand up for our patients'' safety is to amend the immunity clause of the Health Care Quality Improvement Act, HCQIA.
I hope that the Quaids will join the Patients'' Safety movement, because we know what we need to do.
http://www.allianceforpatientsafety.org

[pulsecolo]

Some of us might be tired of complaints about this story lasting longer then others think it should. People interested in medical misadventures have no where else to go, leave them alone and let them vent. The Quaids are not whining, nor are the people posting here who have told heartbreaking stories of loss and apathy whining. Maybe they are trying to warn people like you that everyone is at risk. I hope that the Quaids or someone else who is considered to be important by American standards gets on this issue and sticks to it like glue, spends lots of money to buy media time, and finances public education for patient safety. Oh, and for the person who said that the IOM report was "overstated", get your head out of the sand, wake up and smell the coffee. When you and your facility stop getting paid for preventable bad outcomes you might just find out exactly what the real numbers are.

[barbaraf4]

Will this story never end? If it were my husband and I and our twins, it wouldn''t be a story and it wouldn''t have made it into print.

Enough! The twins will be okay and we are aware that serious mistakes happen in the medical field.

[corfyworfy]

How ironic that you devote most of your show to sleep deprivation after the segment on medication errors yet never make the connection! The U.S. medical community mostly requires a minimum of 12 hour shifts for their staffs with physicians often spending in excess of that. No wonder there are so many mistakes! Although we Americans resist learning from other countries, perhaps we should adopt the Britsh practice of having two nurses present to confirm and reaffirm the adminstering of the correct drug. The medical community may complain about the possible need for increased staff but in the end it will save money, especially for the insurance companies that control the medical lives of most of us.

[donnap528]

As a registered professional nurse, the whole incident sickens me. The potential disaster of %u2018look-alike, sound-alike%u2019 drugs has been drilled in to the heads of hospitals and nurses by the Joint Commission. Then, there are "5 Rights" to medication administration that were drilled into my head as a student many years ago: Right patient, Right medication, Right dose, Right route, and Right time. There was and is no excuse for any deviation from this. Yes, nurses work very hard for long hours. No one can debate that. However, the basics of safe medication administration cannot ever be overlooked. The simple fact alone that Heparin is considered a ''high-alert'' drug because of it''s potential for disaster should have made the nursing staff involved more vigilant. In most neonatal centers, heparin has to be DOUBLE-CHECKED by two nurses before administration. The nurse involved in this case will be lucky that she doesn''t lose everything she owns over this; at the very least, including her license to practice. Sound harsh? Ok, I agree. But, even in a just culture, a reckless behavior, defined as one in which a conscious disregard of unreasonable risk is taken, should be punished. The nurse who administered this overdose to these infants KNEW the rules and circumvented them. Punished, indeed.

[baheffner]

The reality is: about 70-80% of drugs are administered to kids off label. Medical devices are a whole different nightmare. Pediatricians routinely have to jerry-rig adult drugs and devices for kids, and hope for the best.

A nonprofit has been formed to help to bring drugs and devices tailored for kids to market. Visit pediatricinnovation.org. It was founded by the former head of licensing at Children''s Hospital in Boston. The former Dean of Dartmouth Medical School has just joined the team as well. They are great guys who are trying to address this very issue.

Medical devices or drugs for kids represent just 5-10% of the overall market, so they have not been an attractive target for investors in the past.

[putney1968]

What a bunch of melodramatic hogwash.Heparin''s effects are reversible by giving protamine. What''s the hidden agenda here? Dennis is doing too well at the box office, I guess. He needs to do some fact checking. The infamous 100,000 death figure is an extrapolation in a flawed restrospective study that was anectdotal and uncontrolled. yes, medical errors cause deaths, about 1000 per year. Let''s see, 35,000 Americans die in car crashes every year too. Let''s all go to court and sue, shall we?

[baheffner]

The reality is: about 70-80% of drugs are administered to kids off label. Medical devices are a whole different nightmare. Pediatricians routinely have to jerry-rig adult drugs and devices for kids, and hope for the best.

A nonprofit has been formed to help to bring drugs and devices tailored for kids to market. Visit pediatricinnovation.org. It was founded by the former head of licensing at Children''s Hospital in Boston. The former Dean of Dartmouth Medical School has just joined the team as well. They are great guys who are trying to address this very issue.

Medical devices or drugs for kids represent just 5-10% of the overall market, so they have not been an attractive target for investors in the past.

[baheffner]

The reality is: about 70-80% of drugs are administered to kids off label. Medical devices are a whole different nightmare. Pediatricians routinely have to jerry-rig adult drugs and devices for kids, and hope for the best.

A nonprofit has been formed to help to bring drugs and devices tailored for kids to market. Visit pediatricinnovation.org. It was founded by the former head of licensing at Children''s Hospital in Boston. The former Dean of Dartmouth Medical School has just joined the team as well. They are great guys who are trying to address this very issue.

Medical devices or drugs for kids represent just 5-10% of the overall market, so they have not been an attractive target for investors in the past.

[baheffner]

The reality is: about 70-80% of drugs are administered to kids off label. Medical devices are a whole different nightmare. Pediatricians routinely have to jerry-rig adult drugs and devices for kids, and hope for the best.

A nonprofit has been formed to help to bring drugs and devices tailored for kids to market. Visit pediatricinnovation.org. It was founded by the former head of licensing at Children''s Hospital in Boston. The former Dean of Dartmouth Medical School has just joined the team as well. They are great guys who are trying to address this very issue.

Medical devices or drugs for kids represent just 5-10% of the overall market, so they have not been an attractive target for investors in the past.

[hypnagogic-2009]

The drug companies make products. That is their job. They are not there to hold the hands of the nurses and doctors that use the product every day. They are there to find chemical combinations that save lives. To sue a company for making a product that works is ridiculous, and wrong. Does anyone in America ever think they can accomplish anything without suing someone?

There is a way to get people and companies to do things without stripping our country of personal responsibility, and every time someone wins a lawsuit like this, personal responsibility disappears a little bit more.

I completely respect and admire medical workers, and, I agree with those that said Quaid should try and do a nurse''s job for 24 hours. And I agree that it is a good idea to alter the look of our medications, to make things safer. But, in the end the responsibility lies with those that administered the drug, and those that allowed tired and stressed hospital personal to remain on the job for extremely long hours. But, to sue the maker of a drug that was misused is absurd. It is like suing a tobacco company for giving you cancer when you know *** well that this is a great possibility when you smoke!


For freedom''s sake, let''s stop acting like children and take a little personal responsibility for our lives, or we might as well just admit to the fact that we are telling our government and major companies to make our choices for us and to treat us like children.

[zootallures2]

Well, people get jobs based on social popularity because of krap like.... hollywood. Don''t shun and isolate smart people and promote on looks and social babbling like baboons.

[ntjaden]

In regards to the comment posted by pyv2001: I do not believe it was Mr. Quaide''s intention to focus blame on the entire Nursing Community as you so painfully implied. Coming from 3 generations of dedicated Nurses, I understand it is not uncommon for mistakes to happen when faced with issues such as understaffing, sleep deprivation, and probably in your case lack of common sense where the double check method is involved. These infants were given the wrong medication not once, but twice to the knowledge of the family. That is a grave error that should have been caught at least the first time. For you to claim ignorance on behalf of the nursing profession should be a testament to your own and no one else%u2019s. Is it not standard protocol to have more than one member of the nursing staff confirm the correct medication and dosage before it is administered? Also in my experience medication counts and checks are done at the beginning and end of every shift. "Proud to be a nurse", before making such a heartless judgment of someone else''s ordeal maybe you should revisit one of your ethics textbooks or consider changing YOUR own shoes!

[rpriddy]

The Quaid''s story was an interesting sequel to the sleep deprivation story. Has anyone considered a link? From Mr. Quaid''s bully pulpit, he might consider the relationship between medical errors and shift work, hospital understaffing (or wrong-staffing) combined with the perpetual sleep deprivation inherent to medical practice.