Becker's Hospital Review

Jan-Feb 2020 Issue of Becker's Clinical Leadership & Infection Control

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14 INFECTION CONTROL & PATIENT SAFETY Everything you need to know about Seattle Children's mold issues By Gabrielle Masson T hree lawsuits were filed Dec. 2, 2019, against Seattle Children's Hospital over longstanding mold issues in the facility's operating rooms, according to The Seattle Times. Here's everything you need to know: 1. Seattle Children's postponed and diverted surgeries last May aer detecting Aspergillus mold in its operating rooms. A few weeks later, the hospital announced that one patient had died and five had been sickened by mold in the past two years. 2. e family of a teenage patient filed a lawsuit against Seattle Children's Oct. 25, claiming a 2018 mold-related infection disabled their son, according to e Seattle Times. 3. Aspergillus was found again at Seattle Children's Nov. 10, sickening one patient, with other potential cases under investigation. 4. e system that circulates air through the hospital's operating rooms is now thought to be the cause of 14 mold infections and six deaths dating back to 2001, Jeff Sperring, MD, Seattle Children's CEO, announced Nov. 18. e hospital was scheduled to install custom in-room high efficiency particulate air filters in 10 operating rooms and two equipment storage rooms by the end of January. 5. Former hospital employees said they discovered mold and dead birds in the air system as early as 2001. Seattle Children's carefully investigated each mold-related infection but the results were inconclusive until 2019, Lindsay Kurs, a hospital spokesperson, told e Seattle Times Nov. 25. 6. A lawsuit was filed Dec. 2 on behalf of four children, all of whom allegedly were sickened by the hospital mold between 2005 and 2017. Attorneys are seeking class-action status to eventually include all Seattle Children's patients sickened by the mold since 2000. e lawsuit claims hospital leaders engaged in years of "cover-up, designed to reassure its patients, doctors, nurses and the public that its premises were safe, when in fact they were not." 7. e family of an 11-year-old boy filed a separate lawsuit Dec. 2, claiming he contracted a mold-related infection during surgery at Seattle Children's in March 2019 and was not diagnosed for two months. 8. Another lawsuit, also filed Dec. 2, alleges that a 4-year-old boy had to undergo a second brain surgery at Seattle-based Harborview Medical Center in May 2019 because physicians deemed him to be at "high risk for Aspergillus mold exposure" from the initial Seattle Children's surgery. 9. It is not known if the patients involved in the lawsuits are among the 14 cases Seattle Children's has disclosed. "We are incredibly sorry for the hurt experienced by these families and regret that recent developments have caused additional grief," Kathryn Mueller, a spokesperson for Seattle Children's, told e Seattle Times. "Out of respect for privacy, we do not intend to share details about our patients or comment on specific cases or legal action." n LA Times report spotlights safety issues in California psych wards By Mackenzie Bean M ore than 100 preventable deaths have occurred at mental healthcare facilities in California since 2009, according to an investigative report from the Los Angeles Times. For the investigation, Los Angeles Times reporters filed more than 100 public record requests to obtain death certificates, coroner's reports and hospital inspection reports from nearly 50 California counties. The results of- fer the first public count of deaths among mental health patients in the state. More than 50 people killed themselves while admitted to psychiatric wards in California, while another 30 survived suicide attempts, according to documents reviewed by the Los Angeles Times. In other instances, deaths were linked to staff members im- properly restraining patients or failing to check on suicidal patients in required 15-minute intervals. After nearly every death, the facilities continued to operate and did not incur a financial penalty, the report found. n New York is 1st state to publicize hospitals with C. auris cases By Mackenzie Bean N ew York health officials on Nov. 13, 2019, pub- lished a list of healthcare organizations that have treated patients for the deadly fungus Candida auris, making it the first state to share this information with the public, reported The New York Times. The list includes 64 hospitals, 103 long-term care homes, three hospice units and one long-term care hospital. It does not detail how many cases occurred at each organization. The New York State Department of Health released the list in response to a rapid increase in C. auris cases. Health officials said the information is intended to boost transparency for consumers and motivate hospitals to stop C. auris from spreading further, according to NYT. The CDC has reported 836 cases of C. auris nation- wide as of Aug. 31, 2019. Of these, 388 have occurred in New York. n

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