HOLLYWOOD, Calif. — Cedars-Sinai Medical Center was fined $25,000 on Thursday by the California Department of Public Health for giving overdoses of a blood thinner to three infants, including the newborn twins of Dennis Quaid and his wife Kimberly.
In addition to Los Angeles' Cedars-Sinai, 10 other hospitals were fined for violations that caused or were "likely to cause, serious injury or death to patients," the Associated Press reports.
Cedars spokesman Richard Elbaum said the facility had cooperated with state authorities and was planning to pay the fine. Since the incident, the hospital has apologized to the patients' families and said it has taken steps to better train staff.
Last November, the Quaids twins, Thomas Boone and Zoe Grace, were hospitalized for a suspected infection. The couple's newborns and the other unidentified baby were nearly killed when they were mistakenly given a massive overdose of the drug heparin.
The preventable error happened as a result of a pharmacy technician storing the higher heparin doses in the wrong place, which in turn led to a nurse administering the drug to the babies without verifying the dosage first.
The Quaids later filed a lawsuit against heparin manufacturer Baxter Healthcare Corp., accusing the company of negligence in packaging different doses of the product in similar vials.
All three babies recovered from the hospital misstep, but two needed a drug that reverses the effects of heparin.
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