State rips UMC over break room meeting

By Marshall Allen

Wednesday, March 17, 2010 | 2 a.m.

State health authorities have reprimanded University Medical Center for allowing on-duty emergency room nurses to meet in a break room with Clark County Commissioner Chris Giunchigliani.

The meeting improperly drew the nurses away from their patients, Health Division inspectors concluded.

The meeting prompted a verbal confrontation at the Clark County Commission meeting March 2 between Dr. Dale Carrison, the hospital’s chief of staff and emergency room director, and Giunchigliani. He said her visit with nurses disrupted patient care.

According to the state report, which was delivered to the hospital Tuesday, the clinical manager of the emergency department said six of 18 nurses scheduled during the shift attended the impromptu meeting with Giunchigliani. The manager told the state inspector that she was concerned about staffing of a “medical pod” made up of 12 beds with cardiac monitoring, the report said.

The clinical manager estimated one registered nurse was caring for nine patients in the medical pod for about 25 minutes, the report said. There should have been three nurses at the time, she told the inspector.

Another administrator said patients experienced no bad outcomes because of the meeting, the report said.

The state’s report does not indicate whether any nurses were interviewed.

Health officials said UMC will have to submit a plan of correction and face a fine of up to $400 for the staffing violation.

A nurse who works in the UMC emergency room told the Sun it was ridiculous to suggest that nurses had ignored their patients to attend the meeting. The nurses “popped in and out” of the meeting and were away from their patients no longer than they would for bathroom breaks, the nurse said.

Giunchigliani told the Sun on Tuesday that nurses stopped by for a few minutes at a time and none stayed for the entire meeting, which had been set up by the Service Employees Union International Local 1107. She said she held meetings at four locations in the hospital that morning and cannot say whether the state’s report is accurate. People came and went throughout the meeting, she said.

Brian Brannman, UMC’s chief operating officer, said the hospital will develop a policy to make it clear to employees how they are to respond when they have official visitors.

The public hospital’s emergency room has been the center of controversy since Nov. 30, when staff failed to care for a pregnant woman, Roshunda Abney, who showed up there with abdominal pain. Abney did not know she was pregnant, and UMC employees failed to recognize she was in labor. She and her fiance waited more than five hours, begging for treatment, before eventually going home and delivering a premature baby girl, who died.

A state health investigation confirmed that UMC neglected Abney. The couple are suing the hospital.

Six hospital employees were suspended as a result of the incident, and the emergency room changed many of its procedures to better triage patients.

The aftermath has pitted the emergency room’s managers against its employees, the nurse who works there said. Emergency room managers assigned certified nursing assistants with little training to triage patients the night of Abney’s visit, and are now blaming the employees for their inability to recognize she needed treatment, the nurse said.

Giunchigliani’s meeting with the nurses was an opportunity for them to share their grievances, the nurse said.