PA Hospital's Deficiencies Detailed in CAP

Margaret Dick Tocknell, for HealthLeaders Media, April 13, 2012

Other deficiencies and violations identified in the survey include:

Failure to transfer emergency room patients to other facilities in a timely manner
Failure to ensure that the x-ray equipment is properly calibrated
Failure to dispose of expired medications
The continued use of expired lab testing supplies
Excessive humidity levels in operating rooms
Failure to conduct preventive maintenance on operating room anesthesia machines
Failure to prepare and for the board to accept an annual operating budget for 2012
Consistent delays in the payment of employee federal tax withholdings, and Social Security and Medicare payroll deductions as required by law.
Continuing to deduct from employee paychecks the payments for long-term disability insurance although the policy was terminated in August 2011 due to nonpayment.
Suspending payments to the employees' 401K vendor without notifying employees.

The survey identifies several instances when the deficiencies or violations may have directly compromised patient care:

The ER staff was unable to monitor the heart rate or blood oxygen levels of an 18-day old infant because there were no pediatric/infant electrodes or a pulse oximetry machine available in the ER.
A ER patient requiring advanced cardiac life support waited two hours for a transfer to another hospital
The fire alarm system vendor cancelled the service for nonpayment. For four months Saint Catherine didn't have central station fire alarm monitoring however staff was never informed that they would need to call the fire department to report a fire at the hospital.

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