Survivors and Medical records

[hoodlum]

What is the name of your state? Indiana My mother recently passed away in the hospital and I would like to know if my sister and I can have copies of her medical records. We would like to have copies of all her medical records from the hospital. I know that our family doctor can see them but we were not sure if we were allowed to have them. Also one other question, if we are able to get the records will they show everything that was documented and occurred from the point of her entering the emergency room through the time she was in ICU until the point of her death?

Thanks

[racer72]

When you called the hospital and asked, what were you told?

[hoodlum]

I guess that would be the first place to start. We have just had a lot of things to take care since Mom's death and I was checking my email and thought I would pop into the website and see if anyone else had ever asked the same question.

In the past I have received some really good advice on here and thought maybe someone would know. I just figured it would give me alittle head start to know whether or not I was going to have a battle on my hands to get them. Sorry for the inconvenience.

[las365]

Generally, the representative of her Estate should be able to sign a Hipaa release and obtain the records. I assume you want to see the records because you are concerned that there may have been medical malpractice?

If you want to post about what happened, you can get a reaction as to whether it sounds like the treatment she received was below the standard of care.

[hoodlum]

Her doctor ordered an autopsy because no one would sign the death certificate and they wanted him to. But I would also like to have her records so maybe I will understand more. My sister took her in because she had gotten sick earlier in the day and she was in severe pain in her abdominal area and her lower back.

Last year she had an old ulcer flare up and they found that by doing an upper GI and they also did a colonoscopy. After that she was fine except she did have osteoarthritis in her back.

When she was admitted into the emergency room at 6p.m. on the 16th, they tested her for flu and she did not have the flu. Then they said she was wheezing so they were concerned that maybe she had aspirated into her lungs when she vomited. They took her upstairs and did a cat scan of her chest area. They did not find anything in her lungs and they said from what they could see that she did not have an enlarged heart or congestive heart failure or a blood clot in the lungs. They gave her fluids intravenously and they also hooked her up to oxygen and gave her a breathing treatment as a precaution. Then they moved her to ICU. They told us that the doctor would be there at 8 in the morning to check her. They never addressed her back pain or her abdominal pain.

The family stayed up all night and stayed with her taking turns. Her vitals seemed ok, but then I am not a doctor. She kept complaining to the nurses the few times they came in that she was in pain, both in her back and her abdomen. They gave her stuff for nausea that the ER doctor prescribed.

Eight came, 9, 10 and then 11:30 they finally came in and said the doctor was there but had to leave because he had the flu but they had called another doctor in. They said he was up on the next floor and he would be down shortly. All through the night and day before the doctor came she was crying because she hurt. She kept saying are they not going to help me? The doctor finally came at 5p.m. in the afternoon. He asked me if I would bring him up to date on what I knew. I said they have addressed her lungs but not the reason why we brought her in here. You could tell he was mad after listening to me and he said he would review her chart and get back to us.

My sister and my husband talked to him and he kept saying why have they not or did they not address her abdomen or her back.

So he said I want test ordered and they came in and gave her some stuff in a small bottle to drink and then came back later and told us, no water or anything else. She seemed to be in better spirits because they were finally doing something. They came back an hour later and said they were going to wait until the next day. Probably didn’t have anybody to do the test that late one of my relatives said on a Sunday. I felt like we could have kept her at home and she would have gotten better care there and at least when she died she would have been at home where she wanted to be.

Later that night I ran home to get cleaned up and my son and daughter stayed with her. She took her blood pressure cuff off and no one came to see what was wrong. My son had to walk the halls to find a nurse. There were 4 patients in ICU counting my mom.
She died 31 hours later at 1:20a.m. on the 18th and we never knew what was wrong with her stomach or her back.

The doctor from ER came and she told us that she had to explain what happened or at least what they think happened. She said she thought my mother aspirated again which stopped her breathing, which stopped her heart. Now we are waiting for the autopsy report.