Failure to Complete Physician-Ordered Laboratory Testing
Penalty
Summary
The facility failed to ensure that laboratory testing was completed as ordered by the physician for one resident. Medical record review showed that the resident, who had diagnoses including malignant neoplasm of the lung, malnutrition, depression, and a history of falls, was admitted with orders from a chemotherapy physician to have specific labs drawn on a set schedule. On one occasion, instead of the required labs, only a Prothrombin Time (PT) and International Normalized Ratio (INR) were collected. On a subsequent attempt, all required labs except for the Comprehensive Metabolic Panel (CMP) were collected, necessitating another order for the CMP to be drawn on a later date. Interviews with the resident and an LPN confirmed that the labs were not collected as ordered, resulting in the resident missing a chemotherapy treatment. The LPN acknowledged the error in the lab collection process and described the steps taken to attempt to correct the issue, including ordering a STAT lab and reordering the missing test. The deficiency was identified during a complaint investigation and affected one resident out of three reviewed for laboratory testing.