TIFFANY L. PARKS
Daily Reporter
Sen. Charleta Tavares has asked lawmakers to back a bill that would require health care professionals to wear identification when providing direct patient care.
“Senate Bill 90 would help ensure transparency between patients and health care professionals and guarantee patient safety,” Tavares, D-Bexley, told members of the Senate Health and Human Services Committee.
The identification card would have to include the professional’s name, photograph, license held, license expiration date and employer.
According to a bill summary, cards would have to be “sufficient size” and be worn in a place that is visible to patients and others.
“Without this legislation it is all too easy for patients to confuse who is and isn’t a licensed health care professional,” Tavares said.
“Moreover, it is also very easy for unlicensed or unqualified individuals to administer care to unaware patients.”
The lawmaker said the misrepresentation of the level of training held by health care professionals is dangerous and can lead to tragedy.
“One such instance where this occurred was at the Medical University of South Carolina in 2000. Lewis Blackman was a bright, 15-year-old young man with a condition known as pectus excavatum, in which the ribs and sternum form abnormally and often result in a sunken appearance of the chest,” Tavares said.
The teen’s parents chose to have a corrective surgery done for the teen at the Medical University of South Carolina after learning that the hospital had recently made the procedure less invasive and had already accomplished several successful surgeries on other patients with the same condition.
On Nov. 2, Lewis had surgery. Afterward, he was given the drug Toradol to manage his pain.
The next day, Lewis began exhibiting symptoms that coincided with the known side effects of Toradol, but his mother’s concerns were dismissed.
In the following days, the teen’s condition worsened with abdominal pain, a fever, an elevated heart rate and dark circles around his eyes.
After his mother repeated a request to have a doctor examine him, a medical professional came into his room and checked on Lewis.
Tavares said the mother, Helen Blackman, later discovered the professional was not a doctor but a beginning resident who specialized in osteopathy, which focuses on bones and muscles.
Four days after the surgery, a doctor did examine Lewis and told his parents the teen was experiencing side effects from the medication due to his young age.
“Five days after Lewis’ surgery his pain suddenly vanished leading Helen and the hospital staff to assume he was recovering. The sudden loss of pain, however, was a sign that Lewis’ body was shutting down.”
The teen died Nov. 7.
He had been given 50 times the average dose of Toradol for a person his weight and age and had been bleeding internally.
“Helen found out after Lewis’ death that (the doctor who examined her son) was not a veteran physician like she had requested but a resident doctor at the hospital,” Tavares said.
“While there is no way to prove that if these health care professionals had all been wearing photo identification that Lewis would have lived, it is evident that the lack of transparency between Lewis and Helen and the health professionals in this instance was definitely a major factor that contributed to his death.”
Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas and West Virginia have enacted laws similar to SB 90.
California state law requires all health care practitioners to wear an identification badge stating their name and license status in at least 18-point type unless a practitioner is in a practice or office where his or her license is prominently displayed.
In Georgia, the Georgia Composite Medical Board’s rules require institutionally-licensed physicians to wear an identification badge with his or her name, degree and license.
In Illinois, the state’s Medical Patient Rights Act requires licensed health care facility employees, students and volunteers who examine or treat patients to wear an identification badge stating their first name, licensure status and staff position.
“When we step into a hospital, urgent care or doctor’s office we are putting our trust, well-being and sometimes our lives in the hands of the health care professionals working there,” Tavares said.
“Lewis died because of the mistakes made by the people he and his family trusted the most. It is vital that health care professionals are required to wear identification of who they are and what their level of training is in order to insure the utmost level of transparency between patients and health professionals.”
SB 90 would authorize each state health professional licensing board to take disciplinary actions against professionals who violate the identification requirement.