One year of inspections at St. Mary Medical Center: August 2024 - July 2025
The hospital was cited for giving a patient being treated for a brain bleed a double-dose of an anti-blood clot medication.
St. Mary Medical Center was cited by the Pennsylvania Department of Health last fall for giving a patient with a brain bleed a double dose of anti-blood clot medication.
The incident, which The Inquirer first reported in January, was among more than a dozen times health department inspectors visited the Langhorne hospital that is part of Trinity Health Mid-Atlantic, to investigate potential safety problems.
Here’s a look at the publicly available details:
Aug. 8. 2024: Inspectors followed up on a December 2023 complaint about understaffing in a nurse unit and found the hospital in compliance.
Sept. 12: Inspectors came to investigate a complaint but found the hospital was in compliance. Complaint details are not made public when inspectors determine it was unfounded.
Oct. 2: Inspectors came to investigate a complaint but found the hospital was in compliance.
Nov. 7: The hospital was cited with one of the health department’s most serious warnings, immediate jeopardy, after a patient being treated for a brain bleed was given more than twice the necessary amount of an anti-blood clot medication. Inspectors found that a nurse had incorrectly reported the patient’s weight, leading to the medication error. It is unclear what happened to the patient. The immediate jeopardy warning was lifted the next day after the hospital updated its electronic medical record system to prevent medication requests from being filled without adding a new weight. The hospital updated its policies to require patient weights be checked twice, and retrained staff.
Nov. 15: Inspectors came to investigate a complaint but found the hospital was in compliance.
Nov. 26: Inspectors came to investigate a complaint but found the hospital was in compliance.
Jan. 8, 2025: Inspectors followed up on the November medication error citation and found the hospital was in compliance.
Jan. 21: Inspectors came to investigate a complaint but found the hospital was in compliance.
Jan. 30: Inspectors investigated a complaint and confirmed the hospital had violated safety protocol regarding the use of air warmers for hypothermia, but that the problem was fixed before inspectors arrived. Details of the incident, which happened Dec. 26, 2024, were not released because the hospital was not cited by the health department. The hospital’s plan of correction included revising hospital protocol and retraining staff.
Feb. 21: Inspectors came to investigate a complaint but found the hospital was in compliance.
March 3: Inspectors came to investigate a complaint but found the hospital was in compliance.
April 3: Inspectors visited for a special monitoring survey and found the hospital was in compliance.
May 20: Inspectors came to investigate a complaint but found the hospital was in compliance.