That case goes far beyond med error and I don't understand why people keep bringing it up as an example.

She pulled the wrong med, and then injected it and walked out of the room rather than observing for effects. Also the med she pulled had warnings on all sides of the bottle and on the top saying very clearly that it's fatal to administer without ventilation. This went beyond a mistake to negligence.

I believe you can even be personally liable for HIPPA security violations as a user or dev of a healthcare system. That seems a bit scary. I agree that regulation persuades people not to do things out of fear of breaking the law. We see this in it's intentional form with regulation of other things such as abortion, guns, etc. Put so many laws in place that risk of accidentally breaking one and receiving an extensive punishment isn't worth it.

Married to an RN and absolutely sympathetic to the staffing/pay plight they're currently facing. I'm unfortunately not very familiar with the case of Michelle Heughins, but I've heard a lot of the RaDonda Vaught case. The high points of the case as I understand them:

* Vaught stated her department was not understaffed, nor was she tired. The incident also occurred in 2017, so pre-pandemic

* Vaught went to dispense Versed (generic name midazolam) by the brand name, instead of the generic name as they're trained to do. This led to her selecting vercuronium bromide instead

* Vaught stated she had dispensed midazolam several times before, which would have had to have been by the generic name

* Vaught ignored several warnings from the dispensing machine stating the patient was not prescribed vercuronium bromide

* Vaught ignored the red cap on the vial dispensed that stated it was a paralytic agent

* Vaught ignored that vercuronium bromide needed to be reconstituted with sterile water (unlike midazolam, which comes as a liquid). She stated she thought it was odd that she didn't have to reconstitute it before when dispensing the correct medicine

* Vaught did not scan in the medication before or after giving it to the patient, which would have likely prompted another warning about it not being prescribed

* Vaught could not recall exactly how much she gave to the patient

* Vaught immediately left the room after injection, and did not wait to observe the patient for any side-effects

All of this information is available in the DA discovery documents (https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6785652-RaDonda-Vaug...) and the CMS report (https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/5346023-CMS-Report.h...).

The opinions on the case I've observed have been nurses who aren't aware of this and saying she should not have been convicted, and the nurses who are aware who think the conviction is fair ...ish. The latter is at least unanimous she should have her license revoked.

Most agree that Vanderbilt should be held responsible for negligence as well. My wife's hospital for instance does not stock _any_ paralytics within machines, to prevent it being accidentally dispensed without involving the pharmacy. There's also evidence that Vanderbilt tried to cover the incident up.

I've made a point of stressing to any RN I've talked about it with the importance of having a lawyer with you when talking with investigators. Vaught straight up incriminated herself multiple times during her initial interview.