Hospital Safety Progress Not Improving
As The New York Times title declares, Study Finds No Progress in Safety at Hospitals. Since 1999 when the Institute of Medicine conducted a report that discovered 98,000 deaths were the result of medical mistakes in U.S. hospitals, efforts and overhauls were made to improve patient safety. The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) evaluated 10 hospitals in North Carolina between 2002 and 2007, which represented a variable cross-section of hospitals throughout the country. The studies found that "harm to patients was common and that the number of incidents did not decrease over time." The number of procedural complications, drugs incorrectly prescribed, hospital-acquired infections, and wrongful deaths did not decrease with the hospitals attempts to do so.
Other studies, however, show that progress in hospital safety would most likely result from the implementation of computerized systems to order drugs for patients, and to report medical errors. 162 of the 2,341 cases recorded during the NEJM study were caused because patients were prescribed the wrong medication. These medical errors were reported voluntarily by patients. Leapfrog Group, a patient safety organization, whose mission it is to "trigger giant leaps forward in the safety, quality and affordability of health care," believes a mandatory monitoring system would great improve the frequency of reports, and hopefully the frequency of errors.
According to The Times Article, Leah Binder, the chief executive officer of the Leapfrog Group, said it was essential that hospitals be more open about reporting problems.
"Right now you ought to be able to know the infection rate of every hospital in your community."
For hospitals with poor scores, there should be consequences, Ms. Binder said: "And the consequences need to be the feet of the American public."
