University Of California At Irvine Medical Center

Federal investigators found scores of problems at UC Irvine Medical Center during a fall inspection that again put the troubled hospital's Medicare funding at risk, according to report released Thursday. In an 85-page report on their surprise October inspection, regulators said they observed poor oversight and mistakes by UCI doctors, nurses and pharmacists, leading to inadequate care that in some cases harmed patients. Among the findings: An 82-year-old man was mistakenly given a narcotic patch by a medical resident, without approval of doctors or pharmacists.

State inspectors making a surprise follow-up visit to UC Irvine Medical Center last week found two deficiencies in "medication management" and issued an "immediate jeopardy" warning, alleging that patient care was at risk, hospital officials acknowledged Thursday. The warning, which was lifted Wednesday, is one of the most serious that can be issued to a hospital. UC Irvine Medical Center's chief executive, Terry A. Belmont, disclosed the findings by state inspectors working on behalf of the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in e-mails sent to the staff this week and last week.

For at least four years, UCI Medical Center officials and employees knew that liver transplant candidates were dying while the program turned down a huge portion of donated organs it was offered. But the program continued to enroll patients, market its services and try piecemeal fixes that ultimately failed, according to interviews and documents obtained by The Times.

Federal investigators found scores of problems at UC Irvine Medical Center during a fall inspection that again put the troubled hospital's Medicare funding at risk, according to report released Thursday. In an 85-page report on their surprise October inspection, regulators said they observed poor oversight and mistakes by UCI doctors, nurses and pharmacists, leading to inadequate care that in some cases harmed patients. Among the findings: An 82-year-old man was mistakenly given a narcotic patch by a medical resident, without approval of doctors or pharmacists.

In the unfolding controversy surrounding UC Irvine's medical programs, the anesthesiology department has emerged as another trouble spot. In the last three years, administrators at UCI Medical Center in Orange have been confronting a string of doctors' resignations, faculty complaints of risks to patients, a wrongful-termination lawsuit by a former professor, and potential sanctions for the department's pain-management program, according to records and interviews.

UCI Medical Center says it is investigating whether nepotism rules were violated when it hired three relatives of the hospital's interim chief executive. Maureen Zehntner told UC Irvine officials she had a brother, sister and cousin employed at the Orange hospital after The Times reported last week that children of other top medical administrators had been hired there, university spokeswoman Susan Menning said Wednesday.

When revelations surfaced a decade ago that fertility doctors at UCI Medical Center had stolen eggs and embryos from patients, the university vowed to find the women who may have been victims. But UC Irvine acknowledged this week that it failed to contact at least 20 couples, some of whom have learned only in recent years that their fertilized embryos produced children born to other women more than 15 years ago.

At the time, the anatomy class using cadavers donated to UC Irvine seemed perfectly legitimate. The private lab and lecture was promoted to a crowded undergraduate biology class in spring 1998. It was taught by a foreign medical doctor taking graduate classes at the university. Both the lectures and labs took place in university buildings. An instructor's letter of recommendation was offered to those who scored at the top of the class. That's what a former biology student said.

A review commissioned by the University of California confirmed allegations that officials at UCI Medical Center had misled regulators about the hospital's now-shuttered liver transplant program, according to a document released Tuesday. The university released a 1 1/2-page summary of the findings, but would not release the report, citing attorney-client privilege. The investigation was conducted by Los Angeles attorney James T. Duff, a former federal prosecutor.

More than 1,000 frozen embryos belonging to hundreds of people who went to UC Irvine's now-closed fertility clinic are languishing unclaimed at a Century City sperm bank, according to a lawsuit filed Friday in Orange County Superior Court. "We did them a favor two years ago, and now we're suing the people we wanted to help out," said Dr. Cappy Rothman, director of California Cryobank Inc., the largest sperm bank in the world. "We've gone from good Samaritan to adversary."

The California Nurses Assn. filed a complaint with state regulators Thursday alleging that UC Irvine Medical Center has been using faulty pain control pumps that have caused at least five patients to receive an accidental overdose of narcotics.

Federal regulators investigating serious failings in UC Irvine Medical Center's anesthesiology department threatened to cut off Medicare funding after identifying dozens of new problems within the hospital. In a 127-page report, regulators described repeated examples of poor oversight and inadequate systems to protect patients. In one case, a psychiatric patient urinated on a pile of bed linens because the audio equipment used to monitor seclusion rooms was not working, according to the report.

The head of UC Irvine Medical Center plans to step down in March, she told staff members by e-mail Monday. Maureen Zehntner, 60, has been on the job less than eight months and had served as the troubled hospital's interim chief executive since 2005. She cited personal reasons for her resignation, effective March 6.

UCI Medical Center has been placed under state supervision because of its anesthesiology department's "inability to provide quality healthcare in a safe environment," according to a federal report released Thursday. Among the most serious failings cited by federal inspectors was doctors' practice of filling out medical records in advance, suggesting specific outcomes before procedures were done. Officials with the U.S.

UCI Medical Center has fired 13 nurses in the last three months and is investigating a union activist who sought information about one of the dismissals, according to the nurses' union. Eight of the nurses have more than 20 years of experience each, and four of those have spent their two decades at UCI, union officials said. Hospital officials would not comment on why the nurses were let go.

A state appeals court has resurrected the malpractice lawsuit that helped shut down UCI Medical Center's troubled liver transplant program. A lower-court judge threw out the case two years ago on grounds that plaintiff Elodie Irvine had agreed to a $50,000 settlement from the hospital. Irvine, who had deadly kidney and liver disorders, spent four years on UCI's organ transplant waiting list before transferring to another hospital and getting the procedures done within two months.

Already under fire in a management audit that accuses her of retaliating against employees, the executive director of UCI Medical Center faces new allegations of reprisals from another medical center worker, according to a lawsuit filed in Orange County Superior Court on Monday. Ann E. Siemens, the center's former director of development, accuses Executive Director Mary Piccione and two other defendants of wrongful termination, defamation and causing emotional distress.

Kelly Jeffrey always dreamed of running her own business, so when layoffs started thinning the ranks at Marriott Corp.'s hotel division last year, she decided to take the plunge. She quit her job and, using her $20,000 profit-sharing check from Marriott, found a little cappuccino cart business serving customers outside the cafeteria at UCI Medical Center in Orange.

The radiation oncology department at UCI Medical Center has been put on probation for deficiencies in its residency training program, officials said Tuesday. The sanction was issued in January by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education based on a review conducted in May. Officials wouldn't disclose the reasons for the probation, but Dr. Jeffrey V.

UC Irvine's dermatology department has regained unblemished status for its graduate training program, officials said. The residency program had been on probation since 2004 with the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education. "We've worked hard to overcome the issues that have bedeviled the department," said Dr. Christopher B. Zachary, who took over as department chairman last summer, filling a post that had been vacant four years. Among other changes, Zachary put Dr.