Tri-City Hospital board member Charlene Anderson's nursing license: revoked/stayed/probation

John Graham:
While I agree with her probation and stayed revocation for what she did, I don't think Charlene Anderson should be a member of the Board until she has successfully completed her probation. Nurses are held to a very high standard and members of the State Board of Registered Nursing should be even more squeaky clean. It is not fair to the thousands of of other nurses who somehow find the time to get their charting properly done even when they are busy or understaffed. If she is as wonderful a nurse as many have commented, then she needs to do the right thing and resign from the Board in order avoid the appearance of corruption and double standard for members of the governing Board in her profession. I have seen many fine nurses in this state fired or had their licenses revoked for much less.


"...The state nursing board voted Thursday to accept the recommendation of an administrative judge to revoke her license, then stay the revocation and place her on probation... The board hands down stayed revocations to about 100 of the state’s 390,000 registered nurses each year.

"Anderson’s “failure to document the disposition of narcotics is a very serious matter,” Walker wrote. “'If she did not administer the medications to patients, she created a potential for harm by depriving them of prescribed medications. If she did administer the medications to patients, she created a potential for harm by creating a risk for over-medication.'”


Tri-City official gets probation as nurse
Three-year penalty stems from undocumented drugs
Aaron Burgin
SDUT
Nov. 18, 2011

The state Board of Registered Nursing has put Tri-City Healthcare District board member Charlene Anderson on three years probation for failing to account for prescription painkillers while she worked at Scripps Memorial Hospital in Encinitas in 2006.

Anderson, who was elected to the Tri-City board in 2008, was accused of failure to account for 23 Percocet tablets, seven Vicodin tablets and three tablets of Tylenol with codeine removed from a hospital dispensing machine from May to August of that year. Scripps fired Anderson a month later.

Anderson, 61, expressed regret for the incident in a prepared statement and said she would not step down from the board.

“I regret my apparent lack of complete documentation five years ago at Scripps when after correctly removing medications ... and correctly administering them to the patients, I apparently did not complete documentations on the chart in some cases,” she said. “My patients were not and have not ever been harmed and my nursing practice has been enhanced by this negative experience.

“Am I going to resign? Absolutely not. I did nothing wrong that affects my tenure on the Tri-City board,” she said.

The state nursing board voted Thursday to accept the recommendation of an administrative judge to revoke her license, then stay the revocation and place her on probation.

That action is one step short of outright revocation, said a spokesman with the state Department of Consumer Affairs, which oversees the nursing board. The board hands down stayed revocations to about 100 of the state’s 390,000 registered nurses each year.

The judge in the proceeding, Robert Walker, said that while Anderson’s actions were very serious, there was no evidence that patients were harmed by her actions. He noted that she had a nearly complaint-free record in her 20 years as a registered nurse.

Walker also noted that Anderson was not accused of taking the drugs or failing to give them to patients — just not properly charting them. [Maura Larkins comment: It would be next to impossible to find out what happened to those pills. The state didn't find Anderson innocent of consuming the drugs; it just couldn't prove anything, so it didn't charge her. “If she did not administer the medications to patients, she created a potential for harm by depriving them of prescribed medications. If she did administer the medications to patients, she created a potential for harm by creating a risk for over-medication...On the other hand, there is no evidence that (Anderson) actually harmed any patient,” Walker wrote.]

Anderson’s “failure to document the disposition of narcotics is a very serious matter,” Walker wrote. “If she did not administer the medications to patients, she created a potential for harm by depriving them of prescribed medications. If she did administer the medications to patients, she created a potential for harm by creating a risk for over-medication.”

“On the other hand, there is no evidence that (Anderson) actually harmed any patient,” Walker wrote. [Maura Larkins comment: Whew! Both Charlene and her patients were lucky that no harm occurred.]

Walker denied the state’s request to recover $46,456 from Anderson as restitution for investigation costs. The judge said the state did not properly substantiate its costs.

The State Attorney General’s office filed the administrative complaint against Anderson in January 2010, four years after the incidents occurred.

A four-day administrative hearing akin to a criminal trial was held in July. Anderson’s attorney argued that she wasn’t able to chart the medication because the hospital’s postpartum unit, where Anderson worked, was too busy and understaffed.

State authorities alleged that understaffing was not an excuse.

As part of her probation, Anderson must submit to mental health and psychiatric testing after Walker expressed concern that Anderson knew the rules and still failed to abide by them.

“Is there a medical problem that caused her to forget to do things she intended to do?” Walker wrote. “Because the evidence suggests these concerns, protection of the public requires that there be a professional assessment of the respondent’s ability to practice safely.”..