Opinion ID: 1865512
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Directed Verdict for the Defendant Hospital.

Text: Plaintiff also contends the trial court erred in directing a verdict in favor of the defendant St. Luke's Regional Medical Center at the conclusion of plaintiff's evidence. It bases this contention on the accreditation standards of the Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Hospitals which require that, within the limits of available resources, a hospital should provide drug monitoring services through its hospital pharmacy which include: [1] The maintenance of a medication record or drug profile for each patient, which is based on available drug history and current therapy and includes the name, age, and weight of the patient, the current diagnosis(es), the current drug therapy, any drug allergies or sensitivities, and other pertinent information relating to the patient's drug regimen.... A review of the patient's drug regimen for any potential interactions, interferences or incompatibilities, prior to dispensing drugs to the patient. Such irregularities must be resolved promptly with the prescribing practitioner, and, when appropriate, with notification of the nursing service and administration. Plaintiff urges that the hospital's procedures were deficient and not in accordance with its accreditation standards because it had established no formal procedures for implementing the responsibilities of the hospital pharmacy to make independent evaluations of proposed drug therapy and to communicate recommendations to the patient and his doctors. We do not believe the scope and application of the written accreditation standards upon which plaintiff relies are sufficiently clear that these documents are self-authenticating with respect to the required standard of care. Although we suggested in Menzel v. Morse, 362 N.W.2d 465, 471 (Iowa 1985) that hospital accreditation standards provide some evidence of the proper standard of care, the evidence presented in the present case is insufficient, without additional reliable interpretative data, to generate a jury issue on the claim made against the defendant hospital. We hold that the district court did not err in directing a verdict in favor of that defendant.