Devoted to Managers and those that seek to improve their management skills

The response of Baxter Healthcare Corp. to the problem surrounding the labeling of its blood thinner drug heparin, was poor at best.

Actor Dennis Quaid and his wife Kimberly Buffington agree, as they filed a lawsuit against the company citing negligence from the near death of their twin children from a massive overdose of the drug.

Taking into account that the confusion over the blue labels that housed the blood thinner had caused three other infant deaths, it didn't make sense to not recall the product and change labels. It would have been the smart and right thing to do.

At issue was the labels had blue backgrounds which had caused some confusion with those administering it, and had resulted in the three infant deaths. The vials held 10 units and 10,000 units respectively. The Quaid twins were given the 10,000 unit vial of the drug.

This is one of those situations where it's hard to figure out. While the company had issued a warning to healthcare providers using the drugs, concerning the confusion, they never took proactive steps to deal with it other than that.

It's surprising in quality control that they wouldn't have caught the fact that errors could arise from confusion over the labels, but when considering the resultant deaths, it doesn't make sense that they didn't recall the product. There's just no upside to not doing it. Now they rightly have a huge public relations problem on their hands from not taking the right action quickly.

Regardless of the consequences that could happen, we as managers and business leaders need to do the right thing when we're aware of these types of drastic problems. I feel Baxter Healthcare leadership failed miserably in this case.