Mother developing pneumonia calls Kaiser nurse advice line, is not seen by docs until it is too late. $2.74 million award. Alameda County.

Facts and Background

• Facts and Background:

  On January 30, 2013, 42-year-old Jane Doe, a previously healthy wife and mother, died from sepsis secondary to pneumonia. A patient of The Permanente Medical Group, she had contacted various TPMG employees 3 times in the 3 days prior to her death and related worsening symptoms consistent with pneumonia, including fever, chills, cough, sore throat, and 7/10 chest pain. Ms. Doe had a brief telephone appointment with a physician, but was was not seen in person. When she was finally seen on the morning of January 29, it was too late to reverse the downward spiral caused by untreated pneumonia leading to septic shock.

• Plaintiff's Contentions:

  That the first two times Ms. Doe called Kaiser she was routed to advice nurses for complaints of worsening symptoms of cough and chest pain consistent with pneumonia . Instead of an in-person appointment, she was then routed to a telephone evaluation with a Kaiser internal medicine physician who decided without a physical examination that she had the "flu."

  Plaintiff further contended that Kaiser's advice nurse system is negligently set up so that Permanente Group doctors do not actually get the information that is collected by the advice nurses. The doctor was therefore unaware of the worsening symptoms previously relayed by Ms. Doe.

  That Kaiser failed to exercise the required level of skill, knowledge and care in response to the respiratory symptoms and chest pain that Jane Doe described in telephone conversations on January 27 and 28, 2013 and such failure led to her preventable death.  Claimants, Ms. Doe's husband and two young daughters, sought damages.

• Defendant's Contentions:

  Kaiser denied claimants' allegations, asserted that they complied with the standard of care, and asserted that there was nothing that was either done, or not done, which would have prevented her death.