Incidentcase52

The nurse, who leaders did not identify by name or age, worked in the hospital’s emergency department from Aug. 4, 2017, through March 23 of this year. She has resigned and faces an investigation by the state’s Nursing Care Quality Assurance Commission, She denied any illegal activity when confronted by hospital investigators, Bredeson said, but later admitted to state investigators that she had “diverted” injectable narcotics intended for patients. Asked whether the nurse might have used needles on herself and then patients, hospital leaders said they don’t know yet and can’t say how the disease was transmitted. “We know she admitted diverting medications,” Bachman said. “But we don’t know the mechanism.”.

Bredeson said that the number of at-risk patients represents roughly 5 percent of the 54,000 patients who were treated in the emergency department during the 8-month time frame.