HJBR Jul/Aug 2019

Healthcare Journal of baton rouge I  JUL / AUG 2019 21 By Mike Hixenbaugh Houston Chronicle/Propublica Heart FAilure Heart Failure Patients received medications that weren’t ordered by doc- tors; objects were mistakenly left in patients after surgery; and ultrasound probes were reused without being prop- erty disinfected, government inspectors found. The hospital says it is fixing the problems. W hen government inspectors descended on Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center in March, they found a once-renowned hospital system beset with problems threatening the health and safety of patients. It was a place where some people were givenmedications not ordered by their doc- tors, where objects had beenmistakenly left in patients after surgery, and where sewage backed up into a kitchen stockedwithmoldy vegetables. It was also a place where transvaginal ultrasound probes, the type used to exam- ine a fetus during an early pregnancy, were not always disinfected properly before being used in subsequent patients, and where staff