As a Houston, Texas medical malpractice lawyer, I have handled many cases involving care provided to patients at Memorial Hermann Northeast Hospital.
Memorial Hermann Northeast Hospital is located at 18951 Memorial North, Humble, TX 77338. It has 255 licensed hospital beds and annually discharges over 13,000 patients. It has a cancer center and heart and vascular care center, and offers services including an emergency room, neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), diagnostic radiology, lung and respiratory services, neurosurgery, orthopedic surgery, sports medicine, general surgery, women’s services, and wound care.
When I think about this hospital, two cases that I am currently working on come to mind.
One involves a newborn baby that was delivered at Memorial Hermann Northeast Hospital and developed dangerous bacterial meningitis while at the hospital. The baby survived after months of significant treatment at other hospitals, but has been left with a serious brain injury.
I filed a lawsuit against healthcare providers at Memorial Hermann Northeast Hospital on behalf of a patient who went to the hospital three days in a row with the worst headache of his life. All three days, he was discharged after being treated for high blood pressure and a headache. Within hours of his third discharge, he had a massive stroke that left him with a brain injury.
Quality of care concerns
These are just a few of the cases that I have handled involving quality of care concerns at Memorial Hermann Northeast Hospital. In fact, since November 2014, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services have issued two violations to Memorial Hermann Northeast Hospital.
Medicare/Medicaid has a robust oversight program for accredited hospitals, under which it sends surveyors to inspect records and interview healthcare providers about quality of care concerns.
On March 2, 2017, Medicare/Medicaid issued one violation to Memorial Hermann Northeast Hospital for not providing care in a safe setting. The surveyor found that the hospital failed to ensure appropriate infection control practices. The violation stemmed from a patient in the intermediate care unit for whom contact precautions were in order. A phlebotomist did a blood draw on the patient wearing only gloves, when the standard of care required a gown. The contact precautions were in place to prevent the spread of highly transmissible or epidemiological important microorganisms, which are primarily spread by direct or indirect contact with the patient and/or environment.
On November 6, 2014, Memorial Hermann Northeast Hospital received a violation from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. For this violation, the Medicare/Medicaid surveyor found that the hospital failed to provide proper registered nurse supervision of nursing care. The violation was issued because the surveyor reviewed medical records that showed that, in some instances, Memorial Hermann Northeast Hospital failed to ensure that registered nurses evaluated the nursing care needs for multiple patients with pressure ulcers.
In some cases, nurses provided pressure ulcer treatments without physician orders, yet in other cases did not follow the treatment orders of physicians. The surveyor found instances where the registered nursing staff did not notify the physician or wound care nurse when new pressure ulcers developed or there were changes to existing bedsores. In addition, the surveyor found that the registered nurses did not consistently assess pressure ulcers or accurately document their assessments for multiple patients.
I have handled a lot of pressure ulcer cases and, from this experience, know that it is important to have preventative measures in place for pressure ulcers, including proper nursing intervention and care. I have hired medical experts to testify in bed sore cases and they have said that the best way of treating pressure ulcers is to prevent their development. When they do occur, though, prompt intervention is crucial to recovery.
We are here to help
If you or a loved one has been seriously injured as a result of poor care at Memorial Hermann Northeast Hospital, call the experienced medical malpractice lawyers at Painter Law Firm, in Houston, Texas, at 281-580-8800, for a free consultation about your potential case.
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Robert Painter is an attorney at Painter Law Firm PLLC, in Houston, Texas. He has sued Memorial Hermann hospitals, and doctors who work at their facilities, many times on behalf of patients and family members in medical malpractice and wrongful death cases. In 2017, H Texas magazine recognized him as one of Houston’s top lawyers.
