BlogLine
Kentucky becomes first state to decriminalize medical errors
7/24/24
By: LaShay L. Byrd and Kyle Virgin
Kentucky recently became the first-ever state to pass a law shielding healthcare providers from being criminally charged for medical errors.
House Bill 159 was passed unanimously by both chambers of the Kentucky legislature signed into law by Governor Andy Beshear on March 26, 2024. It became state law on June 1st. The law ensures that healthcare providers providing health services “shall be immune from criminal liability for any harm or damages alleged to arise from an act or omission relating to the provision of health services.” The law does not limit liability for gross negligence or wanton, willful, malicious, or intentional misconduct and does not protect health care professionals from civil litigation.
The law was championed by medical associations and came in the aftermath of the high-profile State of Tennessee v. RaDonda L. Vaught case which garnered national media attention in 2022. In 2017, Vaught, a critical care nurse at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, using an electronic medicine cabinet, overrode a function and mistakenly gave a patient a powerful sedative rather than an anti-anxiety medication, which resulted in the patient’s death. Vaught reported her mistake as soon as she realized it, but she was ultimately fired from the hospital, arrested, and charged with reckless homicide. The Tennessee Department of Health’s Board of Nursing revoked Vaught’s license in 2021. The following year, in 2022, Vaught was convicted of criminally negligent homicide and impaired adult abuse and was sentenced to three years of probation.
The Vaught case sent shockwaves through the healthcare community and sparked many conversations and debate about whether healthcare providers should be criminally charged for unintentional medical errors.
In support of this legislation, the Kentucky Nurses Association issued a statement saying “[Kentucky] has a shortage of nurses, and we need to ensure nurses aren’t leaving the profession for fear of being criminally charged for making a medical error.” “Fear of criminal charges can hamper voluntary reporting and cooperation, which is essential so systems and processes can be changed to prevent further errors.”1
The American Bar Association has also issued a statement saying that, “A robust culture of safety relies on self-reporting and transparency to drive process improvement, and criminalizing errors instead foments blame and creates fear.”2
While no Kentucky nurses have faced criminal charges for on-the-job errors, this legislation appears to have been a proactive effort to ensure it never happens. The nursing profession in Kentucky is already extremely short-staffed and hasn’t yet recovered from the effects of the pandemic. This legislation is expected to support recruitment and retention efforts, encourage transparent reporting of mistakes, and provide reassurance to caregivers who enter the medical field. Now that Kentucky has taken this step, other states could follow.
For more information, please contact LaShay L. Byrd at lashay.byrd@fmglaw.com, Kyle Virgin at kyle.virgin@fmglaw.com, or your local FMG attorney.
- Kentucky Nurses Association, News & Announcements, March 18, 2024, https://kentucky-nurses.nursingnetwork.com/nursing-news/198134-tell-the-senate-to-vote-yes-on-hb159- ↩︎
- “Criminal Conviction of Nurse for Fatal Medication Error Diminishes Patient Safety”. American Bar Association. 2022-04-22. ↩︎
Share
Save Print