Michigan man who died because of VA error was Vietnam vet

PO1 Tony Holland - tragic indeed. With the prevalence of DNR wishes, a readily available and recognizable identifier should be used. And not just at VA facilities, but all hospitals and long-term care facilities. Creating a cross-entity standard is never easy (ever done?), but you'd think something simple like a wrist band could be implemented.

First off, NO EXCUSES as a terrible error was apparently made, however to say that he died because of a VA error is stretching the truth a bit. The fact is he did "die", and the lack of resuscitation ensured that he stayed dead. The mistake assuming there are no left out facts would be clear and unacceptable, but we need to realize that there was some underlying problem that caused this man to die. There is a distinct possibility that even if the resuscitation efforts had been conducted as was proper, this patient may still have died that day.
Note that this man died the day after CHRISTMAS, a year ago, why is this coming up now, is someone digging to find problems because they can't find anything new that's "WORTHY" of stirring things up?
VA has multiple hospitals and clinics in pretty much every state, find any hospital chain even half the size of the VA and see if there are ANY such organization that have not had something similar within a year's time. That does not excuse this, but it does point out that the VA is no worse than most of the healthcare available.

Since I became too disabled to work in the hospitals I have noticed many changes. I do see some advantages to computerized charting but I also feel that the art of truly charting and documenting what is going on with a patient is being left behind. I was seeing this problem start before I left. I am not sure how they identify now but I have had to tell every nurse that my parents are both DNR's when before there would be a big red flag on their chart and it would also be announced to all staff at shift change, but most importantly if you walk into a situation you are to always call the code and start the process then if it is discovered that they are in fact a dnr the code is stopped right away.