By Healthcare Facilities Today

Recently, another patient went missing from San Francisco General Hospital. But this time, she was found alive, according to an article on the San Francisco Examiner website.

The at-risk female patient was located nearly 24 hours later, according to the article. The hospital credited new procedures put in place recently to prevent such incidents from taking place in the wake of another missing patient who was found dead weeks after disappearing.

Federal investigators approved S.F. General’s new safety measures one week before the latest patient went missing.

The latest missing patient was categorized as at-risk before she left hospital grounds because she was in need of post-operation medications. She was found the next day in the Mission area, then brought back to the hospital for treatment, according to the article.

One of the key tools put into place to prevent at-risk patients from going missing, a newly purchased tracking system, has yet to be put into place.

The new procedures include training, daily stairwell searches, new alarms on exit doors, regularly scheduled meetings between security and hospital staff, and new procedures when patients go AWOL. They also include new observation rules around at-risk patients for nurses and doctors, and a step-by-step script that hospital staff are to undergo if a patient leaves the hospital, which includes a campuswide alarm that prompts hospital personnel to aid in the search, the article said.

Read the article.