A patient’s wife claims the couple was treated outrageously after her husband suffered a fatal ski accident. David Morse of Nova Scotia died after a ski accident on vacation in Maine. Investigators are looking into both the care Morse received and how his loved ones were treated during the incident.

According to Morse’s family, he was on vacation with his wife, Dana, their children and other family members. An experienced skier, he lost control and slammed into a tree. Dana Morse, a nurse practitioner who has spent a decade working in intensive care, was present at the time of the accident and said Morse suffered severe chest trauma and internal trauma. Morse was awake and responsive immediately after the accident, but in significant pain.

Morse’s wife said that paramedics did an initial assessment of Morse at the base of the hill, but didn’t take his blood pressure, start an IV or take other key basic steps. Then they started to put him in the ambulance, but he went into cardiac arrest.

What went wrong?

As the ambulance raced to the hospital with Dana Morse in the front seat, she said she sensed her husband was dying and asked to sit in the back so she could hold his hand. Instead, the paramedics got annoyed with her requests, stopped the ambulance and left her out on the side of the road.

Dana Morse said she had to flag down a passing car to get a ride back to the ski resort so she could get her car and drive herself to the local hospital, Franklin Memorial Hospital in Farmington. Morse died en route to the hospital.

For reasons that aren’t yet clear, the ambulance returned with Morse’s body to the ski resort’s medical clinic. When Dana Morse arrived at the hospital, staff had no idea where her husband was, or what his condition was.

Administrators at Franklin Memorial have launched an investigation into both the care he received and the allegations about how his family was treated. Among the questions are whether he should have received more aggressive treatment earlier and if he should’ve been flown to another hospital as another skier was that same weekend.

Linda Cole, Wilderotter’s partner of 11 years and her legal spouse, arrived at the hospital, identified herself as Wilderotter’s partner …  and wasn’t allowed to see her. Only after Wilderotter’s sister also arrived was Cole given access to her partner.

Such a denial is a violation of both federal hospital visitation rights and Maryland law.

A hospital representative called the couple six weeks later to apologize, blaming poor communication and a new employee’s misunderstanding of the law for the denial. The hospital said the incident wasn’t an example of discrimination and that it’s reviewing patient rights training to make sure no one on staff makes such an error in the future.

Wilderotter and Cole weren’t satisfied. Cole has filed a complaint with the Joint Commission and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services over the incident.

Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) is finding itself on the wrong end of the Internet outrage machine after a patient’s mother wrote a blog posting that claims the hospital turned the child down for a kidney transplant solely because the child is intellectually disabled.

The child, two-year-old Amelia Rivera, was born with Wolf-Hirschhorn Syndrome, which commonly causes severe mental and physical delays, seizures and heart damage. Kidney damage is a less common, but known, symptom.

In her emotional post, Rivera’s mother claimed that a doctor at CHOP said her daughter wouldn’t qualify for a transplant solely because of her developmental delays and “quality of life.” Rivera also painted a picture of stunning callousness. According to her post, “I said [to the doctor] so you’re saying in six months to a year when her kidneys fail you want us to let her die? And he said yes.”

The information we have is one-sided, as HIPAA regs don’t allow the hospital to give its version of the conversation, or the reasons behind the decision.

But in the wake of emails and Facebook postings criticizing the hospital, CHOP released a statement that it didn’t discriminate in any way against Rivera and that mental and physical disabilities aren’t considerations in transplant decisions. The hospital also noted that it has in the past performed many transplants on many children with a variety of disabilities.

Medical reasons ignored by community?

But even with medical details unavailable, there are hints even in Rivera’s post that there are valid medical reasons for denying the transplant. The necessity of the transplant itself isn’t clear: Rivera claims the transplant is “life-saving,” and insists repeatedly in her post that she will stop at nothing to make sure her daughter receives a transplant. But she didn’t mention in her post or subsequent media interviews why dialysis isn’t even being considered.

Additionally, the family planned to use a privately donated kidney, so qualifying for the organ transplant wait list wasn’t an issue.

Most importantly, Rivera acknowledges that her daughter has had prior heart surgery and has seizures. Both of which make the complicated and intense regimen of medications post-transplant both hard to manage and potentially dangerous.

Those key details are being routinely skipped over by the family’s supporters, who have launched a social media campaign to urge CHOP to change its ruling. CHOP has agreed to meet with the family later this week to discuss the matter further.

It’s hard not to empathize with a very sick two-year-old girl and the parents who clearly love her. But not every treatment is a viable option for every patient. The case highlights the on-going need for health care professionals at all levels to improve their ability to communicate the pros and cons of specific treatments and to relay that information in a way that doesn’t upset patients and their families who may already be emotionally frayed.

A typical example is Massena Memorial Hospital in Massena, New York. The hospital’s board of managers recently voted to spend about $20k for equipment including surveillance cameras, lock-down buttons, and pendants staffers can use to summon police.

Massena has experienced a series of violent incidents recently, including a man who committed suicide near the ER entrance and a visitor to the hospital who broke a window.

Massena’s far from the only hospital dealing with the issue of safety. In recent months there have been numerous reports of shootings, attacks on staff and other disturbances at hospitals around the country — a trend that seems to be on the rise.

While no one would argue against improving safety on hospital campuses, health care organizations do have a need to make sure patients and visitors feel not only safe, but welcome. There have been cases of over-reactive security measures that have resulted in violent incidents as well.

Social media has real business benefits within health care — and serious negatives that can be hard to protect against — whether or not you even use the sites.

The open nature of social media sites like Facebook and LinkedIn means that no matter how carefully you manage your own profile — or even if you choose not to use them — there are some things you simply can’t protect yourself from.

Take the case of Jerry Penner, the CEO of Murray-Calloway County Hospital in Murray, Kentucky.

Shortly after coming to the hospital, a hospital VP made a joke about Penner having sent a friend request to all of the VP’s staffers, but not the VP himself. The only problem? Penner hadn’t sent any of the requests.

A little sleuthing turned up a fake profile of Penner that used a photo of him from a hospital web page, and his basic biographical info such as his educational and work history, which were correct aside from a few mistaken dates. There were few posts made on the page, and aside from some poor grammar and spelling, none of the information posted was damaging or harassing to Penner — but he was understandably disturbed.

Penner said his privacy settings on the site are relatively high and he uses the page mostly to communicate with business connections and promote the hospital.

Activity on the fake profile died down until recently, when a flurry of Penner’s real-life friends and colleagues received friend requests from the fake profile. Most upsetting to Penner: One hospital employee received a friend request with an “I love you” note attached.

In that instance, the person was already connected to Penner on Facebook and knew there was an impostor afoot. But Penner has no ideas who else may have received such inappropriate messages, and if those people realize they aren’t coming from him.

Penner said he had received little assistance from Facebook about the fake account — while he can no longer see the page when he logs on, he said other friends of his can.

For medical professionals who are already leery of social media’s privacy pitfalls, this may seem like one more reason not to use it. But not having the ability to monitor what other people say about you (or say as you) on social networking sites can be even more damaging in the long run.

From hard-to-believe HIPAA violations to dogs performing medical tests, here are the top 10 most popular stories on HealthExecNews from 2011:

10. 5 things doctors wish more of the patients would do

9. Outrageous! Visitor hurt, nurse says: ‘Call 911′

8. Doctor sues patient’s family — and everybody loses

7. Want the most depressing job? Work in health care

6. Doc convicted of murder for lipo gone wrong

5. Patient says ‘leaked’ medical info ruined her life

4. The scary truth about two common drugs

3. Paging Dr. Pooch: Dogs almost as accurate as colonoscopies

2. Doc disciplined, fined over Facebook posts

1. One dumb move nets first civil HIPAA fine

A pathologist was awarded $7.6 million from a federal jury in her suit alleging racial and gender discrimination by her employer.

Dr. Vivian Renta was a senior attending physician with the Cook County (Illinois) pathology department in early 2003 when she filed a charge of discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. In the complaint, she claimed that she had suffered harassment and been paid less than her professional peers. Renta claimed the cause for the treatment was that she was a woman and Puerto Rican.

Three months after she filed the complaint, she was suspended from her job, and in September 2004 she was terminated. She had worked for the county for nine years.

Among other things, Renta claimed she was retaliated against because she tried to expose various incidents of misdiagnosis, negligence and other wrong-doing that put patient care and safety at risk. For its part, the hospital argued that Renta herself had misdiagnosed several patients and had demonstrated a pattern of not following protocols. Renta’s lawyer provided proof that her error rate was actually better than the national average.

The federal jury hearing the case agreed with Renta, and awarded her $4 million for pain and suffering and $3.2 million in lost wages and benefits. The jury specifically requested that the pathology chairman be ordered to pay Renta an additional $400,000. Note: The jury verdict isn’t final. The judge can reduce the award for pain and suffering to just $300,000.

Few would argue that’s not a significant benefit. But many experts are concerned that the growing use of the devices is increasing certain risks as well. For starters, if doctors and other health care pros get too used to staring at a device for information, they may pay less attention to the patient in front of them.

And that assumes employees are using the devices strictly for work purposes. But some employees are inevitably tempted to access email, Facebook and other decidedly non-work-appropriate uses. And while that may seem like something only a rare few would stoop to doing, research shows quite the opposite. In fact, in one survey, 55% of technicians who monitor bypass machines said they had talked on their cellphones during surgeries, and half said they had texted during surgery.

To keep the benefits of mobile devices without creating a potentially risky for patients, hospitals and practices using the devices need to write — and thoroughly train employees on — a policy that covers all aspects of the use of tablets, cell phones, etc. The policy should cover both employer-issued and private devices brought to work, as well as when/how it’s appropriate to use them on the job.

According to prosecutors, between October 2007 and April 2011, Morrison transferred funds from Munson’s Regional Healthcare Foundation’s bank account to an account for her former business. She used the money for such necessitates as buying dozens of boxes of trading cards.

Morrison is required to forfeit any funds and goods she acquired from the crime. So far, over $36,000 has already been seized from various bank accounts.

While a surgeon who showed up drunk would be stopped from operating, there’s no realistic enforcement on how much a surgeon drinks the night before surgery. And in surveys, about half of health care workers have admitted they’ve gone to work hungover.

So a research team recently tested a small group of doctors to see if a night of drinking affected their performance, and if so, to what degree.

For the study, six surgeons with experience doing laparoscopic procedures were taken out for a dinner — including all booze they could handle. The doctors were asked to drink until they felt they were intoxicated. (Researchers provided rides home for the physicians.)

The next morning, the doctors were brought to a lab and asked to perform simulated laparoscopic surgeries, while the researchers measured various technical aspects of their performance. Before starting the tests, breathalyzer tests were administered to ensure the doctors were not legally drunk.

The doctors were tested in the morning, at lunchtime and in the late afternoon. Each time, they performed slightly worse than their baseline test. In general, the doctors made more mistakes and were less efficient in using the equipment. Notably, the morning “procedures” took less time than the baseline tests, while the afternoon simulations took much longer.

Although the study was too small to draw solid conclusions about when and how much doctors should be allowed to drink before surgery days, researchers did say that abstaining from alcohol the night before a procedure is probably a wise move to ensure the doctor’s skills aren’t impaired.

Read more about the study in the Archives of Surgery.