Oregon hospitals: Errors caused 24 deaths last year
Patient Safety Monitor Alert
March 19, 2008
Oregon, the only state to employ a completely voluntary reporting system for medical errors, said its hospitals committed dozens of errors last year, 24 of which resulted in patient deaths. The report, issued by the Oregon Patient Safety Commission, is not designed to accurately capture the total number of errors committed each year, but rather which types of errors are most common and what about hospital processes is causing these errors, according to The Oregonian.The most common errors included objects being left inside patients after surgery, medication errors, and wrong-site surgery. Although the reporting system is voluntary, 99% of Oregon's acute care facilities report through it. Poor communication is cited as a main cause of errors.
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