Was This Reckless Homicide?
Editor's Note: David Marx, JD, is CEO of Outcome Engenuity, LLC, a risk management firm that works to help high-consequence industries create better outcomes. Marx has developed the concept of "Just Culture," an alternative form of workplace accountability increasingly used throughout healthcare. Marx is the author of two books on the subject, Whack-a-Mole: The Price We Pay for Expecting Perfection (2009), and Dave's Subs: A Novel Story About Workplace Accountability (2015).
We all recently learned that RaDonda Vaught, a nurse working at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, has been charged with reckless homicide in the death of a patient, Charlene Murphey. To many in the safety community, it is a setback. How could the State of Tennessee be prosecuting a clinician for what the safety community calls a medication error?
Given the dialogue, I thought it important to speak to this prosecution through the lens of a just culture. Should there be a call to criminally prosecute RaDonda Vaught for her role in the death of Charlene Murphey?
How and Why the Wrong Medication Was Given
The pertinent facts of the event are: A patient at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Charlene Murphey, was about to have a positron emission tomography (PET) scan.
