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IMAGE SOURCE: ©iStockPhoto/ emergency room/author: thelinke
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They are called “adverse events” but for patients of botched medical procedures, they can mean the difference between life and death.
We are now finding out just how common they are in one state.
Under a new law, California hospitals are now required to report medical mistakes. So far, it’s estimated that 100 Californians a month are being harmed by largely preventable medical errors.
The law requires that hospital report 28 different types of substantial injury to patients, including medication errors, surgical errors, suicide attempts, sexual assault, and death during labor.
In the ten-month period ending in May, California hospitals report:
- That foreign objects were left behind in patients after surgery 145 times.
- The wrong surgical procedure, or an operation on the wrong body part, or on the wrong patient occurred 41 times.
- A 76-year-old woman died after a nurse gave her two drugs, neither of which was prescribed.
- One patient was given a painkiller not supposed to be used post-surgery. When she went into respiratory arrest, she was given a medication at a dose 10 times too weak to be effective. She survived.
Altogether, more than 1,000 cases of medical harm have been reported by California hospitals between July 2007 and May 2008 in figures compiled by the California Department of Public Health.
At nearly 100 events a month, the adverse events are largely preventable, and safety experts say they should have never happened.
The move is generally heralded as a “wake-up call” about the quality of California hospitals, which are moving to become safer by improving procedures and training.
In San Diego, for example, after a patient died when they received medication from a medicine pump that had been incorrectly programmed, repeated drills are training staffers to examine every step of the process.
Dr. Angela Scioscia, the center's senior medical director, tells the Los Angeles Times, that this is "a great opportunity to make rapid improvements" because hospitals can learn from one another's problems. "We don't want people to be afraid when they come into hospitals, because they are becoming safer and safer all the time.”
Fines are involved for the wrongdoers. So far the health department has issued $25,000 against ten hospitals. By the year 2015, the medical and medication errors will be posted online.
In California, a proposal to ban reimbursing hospitals for injuries is under consideration.
At least seven other states are considering moves to protect patients from having to pay for the cost of medical errors. Maine, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and New York are restricting reimbursement for avoidable medical errors.
And beginning this fall, the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services will refuse to reimburse hospitals for eight different kinds of medical mistakes, including bedsores, surgical errors and infections acquired during surgery.
Medical errors are costing us billions and leading to preventable deaths according to HealthGrades, a leading hospital rating organization reports in its annual Patient Safety in American Hospitals study.
It finds that from 2004 through 2006 there were 238,337 preventable deaths among Medicare patients. That cost the program and ultimately taxpayers $8.8 billion. #