Deferring management of a postop complication to the surgery team resulted in treatment delay with a serious adverse outcome.
History:
RR is a 54 year-old man with a medical history of hypertension, hyperlipidemia, obesity, and chronic left knee pain from osteoarthritis. He was admitted to the hospital and underwent an elective left total knee replacement with monitored anesthesia care, combined with a left femoral nerve block. There were no intraoperative complications. When RR awoke in the recovery unit, he was in excruciating pain. He received another femoral nerve block and was sent to the regular nursing floor around 4 p.m. By early evening, the pain in his left leg remained poorly controlled and was consistently rated as 10/10. In addition, RR’s heart rates were elevated (130-140 bpm). The orthopedic surgeon was notified of the uncontrolled pain and elevated heart rates and he requested a hospitalist consult.
Dr. Hospitalist saw RR sometime before 9 p.m. that evening. RR was somewhat sedated by opiate analgesics, and his wife was at the bedside. During the interview, she related that her husband had been taking nightly benzodiazepines for sleep for several months leading up to the surgery. Dr. Hospitalist did not examine RR’s left foot and leg, and he documented in his consult that he was deferring left leg issues such as bleeding and swelling to the orthopedic surgery team. Dr. Hospitalist’s impression was that RR had sinus tachycardia, possibly because of the benzodiazepine withdrawal. Fluids were ordered along with low-dose benzodiazepines.
Throughout the night, RR awakened and complained of severe pain. The evening nurse charted that RR was having difficulty moving the toes on his left foot and that the pulses in his foot were barely palpable. By the early morning, RR’s pulses were no longer palpable but could still be detected by Doppler. Examination by the surgical team the following morning documented that RR had decreased sensation in his left lower extremity as well. An ultrasound of the left leg was ordered and revealed a large left popliteal pseudoaneurysm with complete occlusion of the left popliteal, tibial, and peroneal arteries below the knee. The patient went to the operating room three times over the next 4 days in an attempt to revascularize the leg. Unfortunately, RR ultimately had an above-the-knee amputation (AKA) performed 9 days after his elective total knee replacement.
Complaint:
RR sought a “quality of life”–enhancing procedure for his chronic left knee pain. What he ended up with was an AKA and a significant decrease in his overall quality of life. RR was angry that his postoperative pain, which was out of proportion to what should have been expected for this type of surgery, was essentially ignored until it was too late. He blamed the surgeon and the hospitalist for failing to diagnose his condition while his leg was still salvageable.
Scientific principles:
Complications during and after total knee replacement are generally uncommon and can often be prevented with meticulous surgical technique and with attentive postoperative management. Vascular injuries in total knee arthroplasty are exceedingly rare, but careful examination of the limbs is necessary to detect signs of acute limb ischemia. The six P’s of acute ischemia include paresthesia, pain, pallor, pulselessness, poikilothermia, and paralysis. A diagnosis of acute lower extremity ischemia can generally be made based upon the history and physical examination. Once the diagnosis of acute arterial occlusion has been made, anticoagulation should be initiated. Subsequent treatment varies depending upon the classification of acute ischemia. The initial options include catheter-directed thrombolytic therapy with or without percutaneous intervention or surgery.
Complaint rebuttal and discussion:
Dr. Hospitalist defended himself by limiting his scope of responsibility. He essentially said this was a surgical complication, and it was therefore the surgical team’s responsibility to make the diagnosis. Defense experts were quick to affirm that Dr. Hospitalist was consulted for a specific issue – postoperative tachycardia – and that he performed a focused history and physical examination to address that issue. Plaintiff experts cited the Society of Hospital Medicine Hospitalist Orthopedic Co-Management Implementation Guide , which outlines that co-management is the “shared responsibility, authority, and accountability for the care of a hospitalized patient.” The Guide further states: “Inevitably, there will be circumstances where either of the co-managing services could manage a specific problem, or where it is unclear which service would be best equipped to manage a specific problem. These situations can be best managed by following two basic principles: 1) Do what is best for the patient in a timely fashion and do not assume that a problem is being handled by the other service; and 2) communicate frequently and directly with the other service.” Plaintiff experts argued that Dr. Hospitalist failed to follow both of these principles.
Conclusion:
Hospitalists are frequently co-managers of surgical patients, and thus they are in part responsible for evaluating diagnosing, and treating both medical and surgical complications. Once again, it is vital that hospitalists delineate responsibilities explicitly through direct communication and then memorialize such discussions in the medical record. In this case, the chart consultation deferred examination of the operative leg to a surgical team that claimed they were “unaware” of any issues. This case was settled on behalf of the patient for an undisclosed amount.
Dr. Michota is director of academic affairs in the hospital medicine department at the Cleveland Clinic and medical editor of Hospitalist News. He has been involved in peer review both within and outside the legal system. Read past columns at eHospitalist news.com/Lessons.
