RaDonda Vaught, a former Vanderbilt nurse, was charged with reckless homicide after making a medication error in 2017 that may have killed a patient.
"It's kind of drilled into your head that, 'we want you to tell us if you make a mistake that way we can, you know, look at the process and see what happened... But when it comes to a legitimate mistake, I do believe that that is something that should be taken care of by the board." It was only then that law enforcement got involved and the DA chose to prosecute. The hospital has previously declined to discuss the details of the medication error or Vaught’s case. "Health care is highly complex and ever-changing, resulting in a high risk and error-prone system." "Based on my career, I think everyone that I've talked to has always just been up front," she said. Prosecutors have for two days worked to prove she was guilty of reckless homicide in the death. "I've made medical errors myself before, and I've never, never thought that I could end up in jail because of them," Nashville nurse Casey McNally, 30, told The Tennessean on Wednesday, speaking outside the courtroom. "Her mistakes fell through the loopholes." "I do believe that there are times when the criminal justice system has to step in. It's unimaginable, and absolutely no one wants them to be lost." Some drove from out of state to show up.
Four years ago, inside the most prestigious hospital in Tennessee, nurse RaDonda Vaught withdrew a vial from an electronic medication cabinet,
“We know that the more patients a nurse has, the more room there is for errors,” Kennedy said. According to documents filed in the case, Vaught initially tried to withdraw Versed from a cabinet by typing “VE” into its search function without realizing she should have been looking for its generic name, midazolam. When the cabinet did not produce Versed, Vaught triggered an override that unlocked a much larger swath of medications, then searched for “VE” again. Prosecutors will say she ignored a cascade of warnings that led to the deadly error. The DA’s office points to this override as central to Vaught’s reckless homicide charge. Prosecutors do not allege in their court filings that Vaught intended to hurt Murphey or was impaired by any substance when she made the mistake, so her prosecution is a rare example of a health care worker facing years in prison for a medical error. Vaught, 38, admitted her mistake at a Tennessee Board of Nursing hearing last year, saying she became “complacent” in her job and “distracted” by a trainee while operating the computerized medication cabinet. And experts say prosecutions like Vaught’s loom large for a profession terrified of the criminalization of such mistakes — especially because her case hinges on an automated system for dispensing drugs that many nurses use every day. The case hinges on the nurse’s use of an electronic medication cabinet, a computerized device that dispenses a range of drugs. “I know the reason this patient is no longer here is because of me,” Vaught said, starting to cry. If Vaught’s story followed the path of most medical errors, it would have been over hours later, when the Tennessee Board of Nursing revoked her license and almost certainly ended her nursing career. But Vaught accidentally grabbed vecuronium, a powerful paralyzer, which stopped the patient’s breathing and left her brain-dead before the error was discovered.
After making a medication error resulting in the death of her patient, RaDonda Vaught is now on trial for murder. Nurses are watching the trial closely and ...
For instance, Nurse Tori, @nurse.tori_ has also been sharing about the trial in her stories and reposted a video pointing out that the end result of this case could be nurses who will be too afraid to admit any errors they may make—which could ultimately only put patients at more risk. “Many feel very strongly that setting the precedent that nurses should be indicted and incarcerated for inadvertent medical errors is dangerous,” she wrote. “This is a nurse who made an honest error,” said Nurse Erica. “And a system that set her up for failure…and now she’s being charged criminally.” The Centers of Medicare and Medicaid Services threatened to take away Medicare reimbursement for Vanderbilt, which led them to finally report the error and take some additional steps to overhaul their medication dispensing system. Vanderbilt, the hospital Vaught worked for, and its role in all of this gets a little tricky. Vaught has admitted that she overrode the computer’s system to take out vecuronium, but also cited emails and training from Vanderbilt staff that encouraged nurses to override safety warnings for medications in order to efficiently administer medications. According to the investigation, despite the fact that Vaught immediately came clean about her error, the hospital never disclosed that a medication error had been made to the patient’s family or that it could have played a role in her death, and never ordered an independent autopsy to check what her cause of death had been. "What the jury decides is going to have more of an impact on the nursing community than it’s going to have on me personally. ANA believes that the criminalization of medical errors could have a chilling effect on reporting and process improvement. They do make independent decisions, but they tend to look at orders and what other people tend to do in the unit," Craft told the court. The prosecution used Donna Jones, a legal nursing consultant with 47 years of experience as a nurse, to testify that Vaught had several chances to recognize the error of the medication but did not. The defense, on the other hand, presented Vanderbilt’s nurse educator Leanna Craft, who seemed to imply that a medication error could happen because of the hospital’s culture in training new nurses.
Nashville nurse RaDonda Vaught is on trial for reckless homicide for giving the wrong medication to a patient at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
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The fate of a former Tennessee nurse whose patient died after she was accidentally injected with a paralyzing drug is in the hands of the jury.
Among other things, the syringe passed through a number of hands before it was given to law enforcement. They entered into evidence the used syringe, but there was a dispute among witnesses as to whether the amount of drug left in the syringe supported that idea. Only a year later was a new death certificate issued identifying vecuronium intoxication as the cause, and it was issued without an autopsy. Two days later, doctors trying to determine the cause of the bleed ordered a PET scan. I shouldn’t have overridden, because it wasn’t an emergency." Murphey had been admitted to the neuro ICU on Dec. 24, 2017, after suffering from a brain bleed.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) — The homicide trial for former Vanderbilt nurse RaDonda Vaught continued in a Nashville courtroom Thursday. She is accused of ...
After two days of testimony from the state's witnesses, the trial continues Thursday for RaDonda Vaught, a former Vanderbilt University Medical Center nurse ...
She said VUMC has put a scanner in that area now.In reference to the discussion about whether or not Vaught should have monitored Murphey while on Versed, despite a doctor ordering that it wasn't needed, Craft said as a newer nurse, Vaught would have relied heavily on doctor's orders.The second day of testimony comprised of the medical examiner, TBI agents, VUMC director of risk management and the VUMC medication safety director. She is a nurse educator at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.Strainse asked Craft about the culture at VUMC. She testified that the hospital has a lot of younger nurses who are reliant on more experienced nurses for guidance. The jury was then excused for a moment as the defense filed a few motions, including a call for an acquittal. Through the demonstration, the prosecution was attempting to show how Vaught may have seen the top of the vial that warned it was a paralytic. Jones said she emphatically disagrees with the article.Jones and Strainse then got into a disagreement about the notion that a person doesn't have to have intent to be held criminally negligible. Despite the fact Vaught was told she didn't have to monitor Murphey, Jones said because Versed is a heavy sedative, it still should have been done.Jones then showed the jury how reconstructing a drug works. She listed all the ways she feels that Vaught failed to meet the standard of care for Murphey."Nursing 101 will tell you not to be distracted when you're administering medication," Jones said. She testified that if Vaught didn't know the generic name for Versed, she should have looked it up. The state plans to call one more witness, then the courtroom belongs to the defense. Vaught is facing criminal charges following the 2017 death of a patient in her care. Murphy entered the hospital because of a brain bleed. Two years after the patient's death, Vaught was indicted by a Davidson County Grand Jury on charges of impaired adult abuse and reckless homicide.
RaDonda Vaught faces charges of reckless homicide over the death of 75-year-old Charlene Murphey during the Christmas holidays in 2017.
While defence attorney Peter Strianse said the error was a systemic problem with Vanderbilt, prosecutor Debbie Housel said Ms Vaught showed reckless disregard for safeguards protecting patients. Court records show Ms Vaught used an override mechanism to type in "VE", which led to the dispensing of vecuronium instead. When a PET scan was ordered on 26 December, Ms Murphey asked for medication for the claustrophobic anxiety she anticipated.
Former Vanderbilt nurse RaDonda Vaught is accused of administering a patient a fatal dose of the wrong medication.
The attorney for a former Tennessee nurse on trial in the death of a patient accidentally injected with a paralyzing drug told jurors the woman is being ...
Vaught admitted her error as soon as she realized it, and the state medical board initially took no action against her. “How in the world do you take someone down for a PET scan and bring her back like this?” she asked. Vaught admitted the error as soon as she realized it, and the state medical board initially took no action against her. Vaught admitted the error as soon as she realized it, and the state medical board initially took no action against her. In addition to the override, Vaught also failed to scan the medication against the patient’s medical identification bracelet, Housel said. FILE - RaDonda Vaught arrives for a court hearing Wednesday, Feb. 20, 2019, in Nashville, Tenn. Vaught was charged with reckless homicide for accidentally administering the paralyzing drug vecuronium to 75-year-old Charlene Murphey instead of the sedative Versed in December on Dec. 26, 2017.
The trial began Tuesday of a former Vanderbilt nurse charged with reckless homicide and abuse of an impaired adult for giving a patient the wrong medication ...
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RaDonda Vaught, a former Vanderbilt nurse, was criminally indicted with reckless homicide after a 2017 medication error killed a patient.
The hospital has previously declined to discuss the details of the medication error or Vaught’s case. Vaught's criminal trial was delayed by the coronavirus pandemic. The patient was found unresponsive in the PET scan area. But doctors wanted to figure out what caused the bleed in the first place, and ordered a full body PET scan, Housel said. Family members of Murphey's sat with staff from the District Attorney's office. This timeline will help with the confusing case. This was a systemic problem at Vanderbilt, not a RaDonda Vaught problem.” Charlene Murphey was transferred to VUMC on Christmas Eve after her family brought her to the emergency room in Sumner County for a severe headache and vision loss. Vaught in court Tuesday more than once put her head down to cry as Housel and Strianse each spoke about Murphey's death. Davidson County Medical Examiner Feng Li first signed off on a natural death. "This has been a high stakes game of musical chairs and blame. Jury selection in her trial began Monday.
Vaught — a former Vanderbilt University Medical Center nurse — is withstanding trial five years after a patient died in her care. A Davidson County Grand Jury ...
There's nothing that can be said that is going to take away what I did to her or her family. "I have good days and bad days," she said in the recording. I was told there would be some investigation into my termination and in that time I was free to return to work. "Am I going to jail? Am I going to lose my job? She relayed during the recording there's more she could and should have done.
Nurses from across the country are in town to support a former Vanderbilt nurse as her homicide trial gets underway. RaDonda Vaught is accused of ...
Former nurse RaDonda Vaught is on trial on charges of reckless homicide. Her case raises consequential questions about how nurses use computerized ...
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The second day of testimony will begin on Tuesday morning for RaDonda Vaught, a former Vanderbilt University Medical Center nurse on trial for the death of ...
Vaught was emotional during the first day of testimony. Vaught said in during the audio recording played during the first day she was distracted while retrieving the medication. He said he later told the Murphey family about the potential medication mix-up. The FBI then confirmed it was the substance as labeled. Strianse asked if Dr. Zimmerman, the attending physician, filing a false report was ever a focus of her investigation. Murphy entered the hospital because of a brain bleed.
WATCH LIVE: The trial of a former Vanderbilt nurse begins its second day.
The trial will be followed by nurses nationwide, many of whom worry a conviction may set a precedent.
“We know that the more patients a nurse has, the more room there is for errors,” Kennedy said. When the cabinet did not produce Versed, Vaught triggered an “override” that unlocked a much larger swath of medications, then searched for “VE” again. According to documents filed in the case, Vaught initially tried to withdraw Versed from a cabinet by typing “VE” into its search function without realizing she should have been looking for its generic name, midazolam. Prosecutors will say she ignored a cascade of warnings that led to the deadly error. The DA’s office points to this override as central to Vaught’s reckless homicide charge. Prosecutors do not allege in their court filings that Vaught intended to hurt Murphey or was impaired by any substance when she made the mistake, so her prosecution is a rare example of a healthcare worker facing years in prison for a medical error. And experts say prosecutions like Vaught’s loom large for a profession terrified of the criminalization of such mistakes—especially because her case hinges on an automated system for dispensing drugs that many nurses use every day. But Vaught’s case is different: This week she goes on trial in Nashville on criminal charges of reckless homicide and felony abuse of an impaired adult for the killing of Charlene Murphey, a 75-year-old patient who died at Vanderbilt University Medical Center on Dec. 27, 2017. Vaught, 38, admitted her mistake at a Tennessee Board of Nursing hearing last year, saying she became “complacent” in her job and “distracted” by a trainee while operating the computerized medication cabinet. The case hinges on the nurse’s use of an electronic medication cabinet, a computerized device that dispenses a range of drugs. “I know the reason this patient is no longer here is because of me,” Vaught said, starting to cry. But Vaught accidentally grabbed vecuronium, a powerful paralyzer, which stopped the patient’s breathing and left her brain-dead before the error was discovered.
Testimony on day two of the RaDonda Vaught homicide trial covered more of the scientific details into the fatal error and how it became a criminal ...
A HOSPITAL nurse is standing trial for charges brought against her due to her alleged involvement in the death of a patient.In the wake of patient Cha.
According to another report from The Tennessean, the hospital allegedly did not report the fatal error to health officials in the wake of Charlene's incident. "She was an excellent, compassionate, caring nurse. A HOSPITAL nurse is standing trial for charges brought against her due to her alleged involvement in the death of a patient.
ANA believes that criminalization of medical errors - as in the trial of RaDonda Vaught - could have a chilling effect on reporting and process improvement.
Transparent, just, and timely reporting mechanisms of medical errors without the fear of criminalization preserve safe patient care environments. Swift and appropriate action should and must always be taken as the situation warrants. Health care is highly complex and ever-changing, resulting in a high risk and error-prone system.