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The families of several patients who have died or been injured while being treated at Doctors Community Hospital in Lanham say they are angry with the hospital's patient care and have considered suing for malpractice.

The hospital received a steep fine in February from the state's Office of Health Care Quality for not notifying them as required that a patient had died and that at least seven other people suffered serious harm in 2008 from medical staff mistakes.

A survey from the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene's Office of Health Care Quality completed Jan. 8, 2009, shows 14 different cases of patients at the hospital who were victims of medical malpractice from January to November 2008.

Scott Gregerson, a Doctors Community Hospital spokesman, said the hospital paid the $30,000 fine in May and no lawsuits have been filed against the hospital as a result of the survey's findings.

"We are in full compliance with the plan of correction submitted to [the] state, through educational efforts [which] will obviously be ongoing," Gregerson said.

Gregerson said that the hospital and its staff can't comment on specific cases named in the Office of Health Care Quality survey or about patient care.

Hospitals must periodically report to the office and are required to report errors, like surgery on the wrong limb, a patient taking the wrong medication or an infection from an IV line.

The Office of Health Care Quality will follow up at Doctors in a few months to ensure the changes are being made.

In a February letter to Wendy Kronmiller, the office's director, Doctors Community president Philip Down detailed the hospital's plan to improve its compliance and said hospital officials are "extremely concerned about the noted deficiencies. We immediately formulated a plan of action after meeting with our senior physician and administrative staff regarding oversight of adverse event reporting."

Glenn Dale resident Peggy Terry, 73, said she believes her son, Mark Terry, is one of the patients described in the report and said recently she is considering suing the hospital for malpractice.

The Office of Health Care Quality survey shows the patient was admitted to the hospital in January 2008 with a severe blood stream infection and liver disease, which sometimes made him confused.

The survey also states that the patient was found by a nurse sitting on the floor, and later he complained of a severe headache and was given pain medication. The survey does not state that the patient was evaluated by a physician after the fall, only by a nurse.

Peggy Terry says that later that day Mark Terry fell into unconsciousness and doctors performed a head scan that found a subdural hematoma — a collection of blood on the outer membrane of the brain, usually due to a head injury — on the left frontal lobe. The 46-year-old Glenn Dale resident died Feb. 10, 2008.

Records show the hospital didn't investigate the fall or report the man's death to the state.

Peggy Terry said the hospital won't say if her son fell out of bed. The death certificate cites Mark Terry's primary cause of death as respiratory failure, chronic obstruction and lung disease, although Peggy Terry said she believes his death was the direct result of the fall and intracranial bleeding reported in the death certificate.

Dr. Robert Stevens, an assistant professor of anesthesiology and critical care medicine, neurology and neurosurgery at the Johns Hopkins University Hospital in Baltimore, said the procedure at the Johns Hopkins University Hospital in the event of a patient fall is for the on-call physician to assess the patient.

"The standard of care would be that if a patient falls out of bed, the responsible physician will evaluate," he said.

James O'Neil, 80, of Lanham was admitted to the hospital March 1 of this year and died of colon cancer on March 18. O'Neil's case is not listed in the survey because the state review included only 2008 cases.

His widow, Phyllis O'Neil, 75, of Lanham said that while her husband being treated by the hospital, he was only bathed twice during his 17 days in the hospital, and she says a hospital room was so dirty she asked staff to clean it before her husband was moved to it.

Other Doctors Community Hospital malpractice patient cases cited in the Office of Health Care Quality report include a patient who came to the hospital in March 2008 to have a cataract removed and a lens implanted. During the surgery, a lens with the wrong strength was implanted, and the hospital failed to follow up with an investigation.

In another case, two patients were scheduled for cornea transplants in September 2008, and their eye tissue was accidently switched and transplanted into the other patient's eye. The survey states that no follow up was noted with the personnel involved and an investigation wasn't conducted into the prevalence of this event, which the state office said may help prevent the event from reoccurring.

E-mail Liz Skalski at eskalski@gazette.net.