Hospital to spend $1M on changes after mistakes on patients

PROVIDENCE (AP) — Rhode Island Hospital has agreed to spend at least $1 million to improve its systems after mistakes were made on four patients.

The hospital entered into a consent agreement with the state. The agreement says three patients were given tests they weren’t supposed to receive and a fourth had surgery, a vertebroplasty, done on the wrong vertebra.

The Department of Health isn’t taking regulatory action against the hospital, provided they take several steps to improve. The hospital must conduct facility-wide training on patient identification and procedure verification.