California Hospital News Roundup for the Week of March 6, 2015

Antelope Valley Hospital, Lancaster

Nurses at Antelope Valley Hospital have asked the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health to investigate an electronic health record system outage that occurred on Feb. 27, according to a release.

During the outage, the hospital had to close its emergency department and also experienced problems dispensing medication, verifying physician orders and reviewing patient records, among other issues. Maria Altamirano, a member of the California Nurses Association/National Nurses United, noted that the hospital did not have a backup plan in place for such outages (CNA release, 3/2).

California Pacific Medical Center, San Francisco

The California Pacific Medical Center has planned a "rare series" of six linked kidney transplants after a computer program helped match donors with recipients, the AP/San Francisco Chronicle reports.

The computer program, developed by a kidney recipient, finds potential matches based on the patient's genetic profile. The program identified a string of donors who were willing to donate their kidney to patients whose relatives' and friends' kidneys were incompatible. Once one patient receives a kidney, that patient's incompatible friend or relative will donate a kidney to another patient in need (AP/San Francisco Chronicle, 3/5).

Rideout Health, Yuba City

The EHR system at Rideout Health, a two-hospital system, shut down for about a week in February, Healthcare IT News reports.

Rideout CEO Robert Chason said the EHR blackout occurred as the result of two HVAC units in an off-site data center failing.

Chason added that the hospital system's medical care largely was not affected while the EHR system was down. However, he said physicians were unable to access some patient records during the outage and that some patients had to reschedule radiation treatments (McCann, Healthcare IT News, 3/3).

UC-San Francisco's Benioff Children's Hospital

The family of a girl who in 2013 was declared brain dead at UC-San Francisco's Benioff Children's Hospital has filed a lawsuit against the hospital over alleged inadequate care, the San Jose Mercury News reports (DeBolt, San Jose Mercury News, 3/4).

Jahi McMath was declared brain dead on Dec. 12, 2013, three days after she had tonsil surgery to help her with sleep apnea (California Healthline, 3/14/14). The family obtained a restraining order preventing the hospital from taking her off life support (Rocha, "L.A. Now," Los Angeles Times, 3/3). McMath now receives around-the-clock medical care in New Jersey (San Jose Mercury News, 3/4).

The lawsuit, filed in Alameda County Superior Court, alleges that doctors performed a series of procedures that deteriorated McMath's quality of life and seeks unspecified damages ("L.A. Now," Los Angeles Times, 3/3).