Taylor Hospital cited after a medically vulnerable woman went missing for six days

State inspectors say Taylor Hospital failed to protect a 65-year-old patient who left the hospital without shoes or a working cell phone and was missing for six days because hospital staff did not take sufficient safety measures after her previous attempts to flee.

The woman’s disappearance Jan. 31 set off a multistate search for her and her adult son, with whom she lived prior to being hospitalized. She was found on Feb. 5 at a Delaware motel room where she had been staying with her son.

The incident drew one of the state’s harshest sanctions for Taylor Hospital, a 105-bed hospital owned by Crozer Health in Delaware County’s Ridley Park. Inspectors said that hospital staff failed both to protect the woman’s safety and to recognize that she was a runaway risk. She had attempted to leave the hospital against medical advice twice before.

State inspectors briefly placed the hospital under an “immediate jeopardy” warning, indicting life-threatening safety problems, during a Feb. 7 investigation. By then, the woman had been found safe. The warning was lifted three hours later, after the hospital submitted a plan to prevent future lapses.

Crozer Health said in a statement it has “put plans in place to ensure that something like this will not happen again” across its for-profit health system. Crozer also owns Crozer-Chester Medical Center in Upland, which was cited multiple times by state inspectors in the last year for other safety violations, such as delayed medications and improper biohazard waste disposal.

» READ MORE: Piles of biohazard bags, delayed medications: inspection reports find ongoing problems at Crozer-Chester

Hospital staff knew the woman posed an escape risk and should have put extra protections in place, inspectors said. The patient was not identified in state inspection reports. Police reports show she was a 65-year-old who had previously lived in Philadelphia and Delaware.

The woman had been at Taylor since August 2023 and had previously attempted to leave, according to the inspection report.

Staff found her in the lobby on Sept. 21, and alerted nurses that she was a flight risk.

On Jan. 19, the woman left second floor unit where her room was located and walked to the hospital lobby, where she tried to “push through the hospital staff” to reach her son, according to the inspection report.

Officials believed the son had abused and stolen from his mother, and he had been banned from the hospital after threatening to shoot staff, according to police.

Hospital staff allowed the two to speak briefly before bringing the woman back to her room, according to the inspection report.

Nurses moved the woman to a room closer to the nurse’s station and took away her cell phone.

Hospital inspection reports and Ridley Park police reports describe what happened when Taylor Hospital staff realized the woman was missing on Jan. 31.

When the medical director arrived at her room for an assessment at 2 p.m., she was missing, according to the inspection report. A staff member had last seen her two hours earlier, police were told.

Hospital security began searching the building and reviewing security camera footage outside. She didn’t have shoes or her cell phone, and walked slowly, so “she would not be able to make it far,” staff told police.

Police later learned she had called her son from a Rite Aid near Taylor Hospital — the closest is a mile away — and asked him to pick her up. He brought her to a motel in Claymont, Del., a few miles from the Pennsylvania border.

He said he didn’t know anyone was looking for his mother or for him.

She was evaluated at Wilmington Hospital and did not appear to be in “obvious medical distress,” according to a police report. “There is nothing wrong with me. I am perfect,” it noted she told officers.

She didn’t know the month or her age, and said she hadn’t taken unspecified medications since leaving the hospital.

She was admitted to a secure unit at Wilmington Hospital.

The Inquirer was unable to reach the woman, her son, or a sister who police identified during their search.

In response to the state’s citation, Taylor Hospital created an elopement log to track patients who attempt to leave against medical advice, express a desire to elope or have limited ability to make decisions for themselves.

The hospital also trained nurses to screen patients for indications of runaway risk when they’re admitted and follow up every 12 hours. Nurse supervisors and security staff should be notified of any updates or changes to the log.

Administrators agreed to audit the log five times a week for three months, or until there is 100% compliance.