Hospital errors rampant, study says: What can patients do?

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(CBS) How common are hospital errors? A shocking new study suggests that the number of "adverse events" befalling patients in U.S. hospitals may be 10 times higher than a previous estimate.

If that's right, it means one of every three hospital admissions results in a patient being harmed or even killed not by what led to hospitalization but by mistakes made by doctors and other hospital workers.

The study, published in the April issue of the journal Health Affairs, involved a review of 795 patient charts at three U.S. hospitals. Using a review technique known as the "global trigger tool," a team led by researcher Dr. David C. Classen of the University of Utah detected a whopping 354 adverse events. And that figure might actually understate the number of adverse events, as it was based on potentially incomplete medical records rather than on direct observation in real time, the researchers said in a written statement.

Dr. Classen told CBS News he believes his study gives a more reliable tally of hospital errors than other studies, including a landmark 1999 Institute of Medicine study showing that hospital errors caused up to 98,000 Americans each year.

Is the new estimate accurate?

"It is hard to know that to make of the trigger tool," Dr. Peter J. Pronovost, a patient safety expert at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, told CBS News in an email. But he said that "Far too many patients suffer preventable harm in the U.S."

What sorts of events were uncovered in the review? Dr. Classen told CBS News there were "three big ones:"

• medication errors, including getting the wrong druge or being given the wrong dose of the right drug;

• surgical errors, such as having an operation done on the wrong site or surgical gaffes that result in bleeding or infection;

• hospital-acquired infections, which often result from poor sanitation.

Although health-care workers are the ones who commit the errors, there are things hospital patients can do to reduce their risk, Dr. Classen said.

"Many of the most severe events were preceded by more minor events," he said. "Patients should sure that even minor events are dealt with appropriately."

In other words, if something goes wrong or even seems amiss, speak up.

[UofUResearch]

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[foodandart]

After walking out of an HCA hospital in 2003 with benzene poisoning that was from a careless exposure to anesthesia which left me ill for 22 months afterwards.. America - do NOT think that the Obamacare bill is going to make the Medical Industrial Complex in ANY way safer..

The business of 'medicine' is little more than toxic, technological quackery.

Doctors are neither stewards nor shepherds of good health. That is *your* job, so get serious, or suffer being chewed up in the maw of the industrial medical mill-system that treats your health as something to abuse until you die.

[LadyTigerTexas]

We are overworked, understaffed, and are constantly being hammered to treat more patients in a shorter period of time with an overwhelming amount of paperwork. Every week there's a new policy- hospital or governmental. It's going to drive anyone with a brain out of healthcare for good. The docs are in the same boat with the nurses and it's only getting worse with more people being less accountable for their own health. People whine about unions and labor regulations. Nurses are a perfect example of how far corporations will go to abuse their employees until someone stands up to protect them.
It is by our very nature to care for the patients to the best of our ability with the resources we have available to us.
Many nurses work 12 hour shifts and they are lucky if they get 30 minutes for lunch. Forget getting a drink of water
Or going to the bathroom. Fortunately more men are entering into the profession which means
Things will begin to change sooner than later.

[rwsmith29456]

I think nurses are paid well but not enough considering the amount of abuse from administration that one has to take just trying to do their job. If you can take care of 50 patients a day surely you can see 75. It's like that all over the U.S. and it's a heck of a thing when your life depends on that person who is being constantly 'downsized'.

[Martine Ehrenclou]

I interviewed over 150 nurses and physicians for my book, Critical Conditions, and what they reported is just as you said--nurses and doctors are overworked, asked to take on too many patients and asked to do mountains of paperwork demanded by insurance companies and charting, for each patient. Many reported they cannot do the job they aspire to. It's the nurses who take care of the patients in hospitals. It's the nurses who get asked to take on an unsafe number of patients. And yet it is the nurses who, if we created better working environments in hospitals and offered better pay, who play a big part in preventing medical errors. But when they are asked to do too much, what are they supposed to do? I have great respect for nurses who work in hospitals. I wrote a book about how to survive a hospital stay and the nurses were the heros, Critical Conditions: The Essential Hospital Guide To Get Your Loved One Out Alive

[1stlttightwad]

I am an Army Vet and have had the privilige(?) of being the guest at the VA hospital in Lake City, Fl. a few times in the past couple of years. When you go in for any procedure the nurse asks for your full name, ssn, and the reason you are here for the procedure and do you know why this is being done. When medications are brought to you the nurse explains what is being given, which doctor ordered it and why you are taking it. I can tell you that with all the precautions taken at the VA I would bet their mistake ratio is near zero. There is always consternation when you have to be admitted to the hospital. With the VA's precautions and procedures this is one more thing to NOT have to worry about. My hats off the the VA. Maybe the other hospitals should take a look at the VA procedures.DBP7286

[slatep]

Many hospitals today are owned by major healthcare companies.
These companies biggest interest is their bottom line.
Understaffing, 12 hour shifts and gross inefficiency are the primary reasons for the increase.
Hospitals rely too much on computers today.
A patient in a major hospital waited four hours for a drug that would have relieved his condition within 30 minutes had the nurse checked the computer on which she ordered the medication from the pharmacy.
Two hours later she walked by the computer and noticed the order had not been sent.
She re-issued the request and it still took another two hours to get it.
When it finally arrived, it was the wrong dose.
IV fluids were also ordered for the patient.
When the fluids were brought in, the patient had been taken for a scan.
She said she would return to hang the fluids as soon as the patient came back.
The patient came back in 15 minutes.
The nurse would have never returned had she not been summoned by a relative two hours later.
These fluids were very important to the patients healing.
When the nurse was finally reminded, she breezed into the room and said "Oh I forgot all about it."
During the four hours the patient waited for these meds, you would have thought there was a party going on at the nurses station right outside of the patients room where a sign hung on the wall that said "CRITICAL CARE".
Twelve hour shifts are another reason so many mistakes are made.
Ask a nurse or an aide how they feel after 12 hours on the floor and they will tell you they are lucky to know where they are much less what they're doing.
All of this is done to increase their bottom lines.
Most of the companies could not care less about the patient.

[Martine Ehrenclou]

There is plenty a patient can do! First, enlist the help of a love one to act as your advocate while in the hospital. Ask him or her to monitor and oversee your medical care. Keep a list of medications, recheck every time medications are administered. Ask your advocate to recheck your name and birthdate every time you are seen by a new medical professional to avoid mix-ups with all kinds of medical errors, including surgery on the wrong body part. I wrote a book on it, Critical Conditions: The Essential Hospital Guide To Get Your Loved One Out Alive