‘No on-site doctor’: Dental student died in ICU overseen by remote ‘tele-health’ physician who pronounced him dead on a video screen, lawsuit says…
‘No on-site doctor’: Dental student died in ICU overseen by remote ‘tele-health’ physician who pronounced him dead on a video screen, lawsuit says…
29 Comments
My god this lawsuit is going to be epic.
If I’m on the jury that family is going to own the hospital.
That is some fucked foreshadowing of the future of Health Care…
*yelling from tv* “Hey. Hey! You dead? Eh? No response. Welp, looks dead to me.”
This is happening so much more frequently than people know. I work at our state’s major academic hospital, which provides similar services for rural hospitals that have been decimated over the last 2 decades. It’s a heinous choice of having a hospital with a shitty e-doctor or no hospital at all.
A Tele-ICU should not exist.
The rich want us to die. Ai is a tool exclusively for the rich
I’m an ICU doctor. I also work tele ICU shifts for our system.
Tele ICU obviously needs a lot of guard rails. The problem is when hospitals without those guardrails in place see ICU billing revenue and the increased patient throughput and only focus on that rather than the lack of guard rails.
There’s a way to make Tele ICU work that serves many patients well and is good care. It’s just that many C-suites override those concerns in favor of profit.
Tele-ICU? What in the flying fuck did they expect to happen?
If a Yale-owned hospital could not have on-site doctors in their ICUs, imagine a rural hospital in the middle of nowhere. The American healthcare system is increasingly fucked.
>”A dedicated virtual team collaborates closely with on‑site nurses, physicians and ICU intensivists to provide continuous monitoring, timely decisions and coordinated, high‑quality care throughout the ICU stay,” the spokesperson told the Courant.
This is what we get for paying so much less than the rest of the developed world for medical care…
…oh, that’s right. We spend about twice as much per capita. Imagine if any other product or service was like this, twice as much and utterly horrible.
Okay, okay, besides Oracle.
“Now they’re suing the hospital. And since Ted is our lawyer, what’s going to happen?”
“Girlfriends gonna get paiiiiiid”
The fuck is a “tele-icu”? Every hospital ive rotated through had a doctor in the ICU at all times. Even the rural hospital. Granted that was in NY.. Is this some kind of difference of state law bullshit or is the hospital just not following the law?
Our healtchcare system is a fucking wreck. It would be bad enough if this occurred in a remote rural hospital but this occurred in one of thje most densely populated stretches of the U.S.
> Yale New Haven Health, which owns and operates the Bridgeport Hospital Milford Campus where their son died in 2024, and Northeast Medical Group — which is also part of Yale New Haven Health
Remember these names and avoid their hospitals and clinics if possible
I have a feeling a lot of it had to do with this: “The complaint alleges that Hylton was brought into the emergency department on Aug. 14, 2024, and was “subsequently admitted” to the hospital with diagnoses that included pancreatitis, dehydration, metabolic acidosis, and alcohol withdrawal.”
From my experience, you’re treated like the scum of society by the staff when you go to the hospital due to alcohol withdrawal. The RN may have had some prejudice against the kid being an alcoholic/possible alcoholic.
I’m sitting in the ER at the hospital with my wife right now. U know how mad I be if some Dr showed up on a screen and was like “hi I’m in sweeden. I’ll be taking care of your wife “
Tele-health IC-fuckin-U?
The administrator who approved this plan deserves to suffer the absolute worst fate that the cruelst southern baptist preacher has ever wished upon a person for having gay thoughts.
Okay but he was intubated by someone with critical care experience so why did a tele health doc call the code??
You know I’m all for Tele Health for common stuff where you can easily talk it out with a Doctor. But how in the heck does a tele ICU work. It’s called INTENSIVE CARE UNIT! You need staff by your bedside or outside your door 24/7.
I don’t gamble but if I did, I would bet that this hospital was owned by private equity.
I’m a physician, but i’ve never heard of an ICU that didn’t have a physician in house…or at least available.
And he was admitted for alcohol withdrawal…but no one did a CIWA? That’s like Step 2 stuff.
Shouldn’t be allowed to have an icu without an icu doc present. If a patient is so so sick they need an ICU and hospital is billing as ICU level care, this remote BS shouldn’t be acceptable.
Technology that isn’t just cutting costs, it’s cutting lives short.
As a critical care physician, I hate this so much. I had another position years ago immediately post-Covid that required me to provide remote critical care consultations, and what I discovered from that experience is that you cannot provide effective icu care remotely. I would frequently come in to personally assess patients if anything was remotely off, and almost always discovered something on my own assessment that significantly changed the plan of care. And that would only happen if someone noticed and passed along whatever was odd. To do this job well, you have to be at bedside.
Name and shame: This was Bridgeport Hospital Milford Campus, part of the Yale New Haven Health system.
The deceased was in the ICU for *over 12 hours* without being seen by an in-person physician.
This facility should lose their licenses, and honestly, the family should wind up owning a big chunk of Yale New Haven Health.
This level of negligence should be absolutely beyond the pale.
How do you have an ICU with no doctors in it?
Oooof – this was a tough read.
24 year old in alcohol withdrawal with a history of alcohol withdrawal seizures is a worrying case in and of itself.
It’s anecdotal but when I encounter someone young who already has documented alcohol withdrawal seizures – I find they are much more sick at a much faster rate than the folks over 50 with alcohol use / withdrawal / withdrawal seizures.
A bit shocked that the ED recognized withdrawal but only loaded with Keppra and didn’t do pheno or some sort of benzo protocol. Everywhere I work, that’s ordered as a set to get going before ICU is even consulted.
A CIWA not being done as well as the “nursing assessments” assigned doesn’t surprise me at all. Nursing has so much stuff going on, these assessments and scores often go undone or done and undocumented. Not saying it’s always because they are trying to keep head above water but a lot of times it is. This goes back to garbage ratios and overworking folks.
Where was the APP? They really have an entire ICU that’s ONLY tele-doc coverage with no physical provider around? Or is the hospitalist around, is the clinician on, and just never saw the patent + claims it wasn’t their fault cause nursing didn’t do their assessments?
I interviewed for a tele ICU once as a PA and it was a unit that had 3 of us on at all times with a doc in house but covering a different ICU and tele doc available 24/7. It made me uncomfortable so I passed but made me aware these types of units exist.
Incredibly sad case and an easy settlement for the hospital to make. This one is hard to fight and the parents are right to fight it.
WHAT GOOD IS A FUCKING ICU WITHOUT A DOCTOR?