As a Houston, Texas medical malpractice attorney, I handle medical negligence and wrongful death cases throughout the State of Texas, including the San Antonio area.
One of the major San Antonio hospitals is Baptist Medical Center, which is located at 111 Dallas Street, San Antonio, TX 78205. According to the American Hospital Directory, this hospital has 1,487 beds and a total patient revenue exceeding $6.6 billion.
The hospital offers services including cancer care, cardiovascular care, digestive disorders, elder care, an emergency room, home health, diagnostic imaging services, neurology, orthopedic surgery, pediatric care, primary care, rehabilitation services, a sleep center, spinal care and surgery, stroke and vascular care, surgical services, robotic surgery, urgent care, weight loss/bariatric surgery, and women’s health, including maternity, labor, delivery, and birthing care. The hospital is equipped with a Level III neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) and is designated as a comprehensive stroke center.
Quality of care concerns
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services conducts regular program of oversight of accredited hospitals, including Baptist Medical Center, in San Antonio, Texas. The over site program involves Medicare/Medicaid sending surveyors to conduct on-site medical records reviews and inspections, as well as interviews with hospital staff and healthcare providers.
When Medicare/Medicaid surveyors identify quality of care and patient safety issues, they issue violations to offending hospitals.
Since February 2011, Baptist Medical Center, in San Antonio, has received a total of 35 violations from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
The most recent violation, on June 21, 2017, found that the hospital failed to meet the applicable provisions of the Life Safety Code to keep patients safe from fire. The surveyor noted that patient rooms were propped open with dirty linen carts, which presented a fire hazard.
On May 4, 2017, Baptist Medical Center, in San Antonio, was cited with a violation because of inadequate operating room policies. The Medicare/Medicaid surveyor found that the hospital failed to enforce policies governing surgical care to ensure the achievement of high standards of patient care. Specifically, staff failed to follow the Post-Procedural Verification process in the hospital’s Universal Protocol/Time Out Policy that could have potentially prevented a patient from having to undergo a second surgical procedure.
As a former hospital administrator, I am always surprised to see that, after many years of having a universal time-out policy as part of hospital accreditation standards nationwide, this type of error still occurs. Time-out policies require all relevant personnel to be present in the operating room and then take a moment to identify that they have the correct patient and understand the purpose and location of the surgery.
I am working on a case now involving a suburban Houston hospital where the operating room surgeon and nursing staff did not comply with the facility’s time-out policy and, as a result, took the wrong patient to the operating room and actually performed an unnecessary surgery on her. This should never happen.
On January 25, 2017, the Medicare/Medicaid surveyor cited Baptist Medical Center, in San Antonio, Texas, with an additional four violations. Two violations dealt with inadequate nursing services, as well as staffing and delivering of care. The surveyor found that a physician had ordered an air mattress to treat and prevent pressure ulcers for a patient, but it was never delivered. In addition, the hospital’s wound care nurse or nursing staff did not assess and provide treatment to a patient’s pressure ulcers. As a result, the patient developed another pressure wound and his existing pressure ulcer potentially worsened. The surveyor issued two more violations for the same act, finding violations of patient rights to care in a safe setting.
In addition to these 2017 violations by Medicare/Medicaid, Baptist Medical Center received one violation in 2016, two violations in 2015, four violations in 2014, two violations in 2013, nine violations in 2012, and 11 violations in 2011.
We are here to help
If you or a loved one has been seriously injured by poor health care at Baptist Medical Center, or any other hospital in San Antonio, call Painter Law Firm, at 281-580-8800, for a free consultation about your potential case.
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Robert Painter is a lawyer at Painter Law Firm PLLC, in Houston, Texas. He is a former hospital administrator who represents patients and family members in medical malpractice and wrongful death lawsuits against hospitals, doctors, surgeons, anesthesiologists, and other healthcare providers. In 2017, H Texas magazine listed him as one of Houston’s top lawyers.
