Featured Posts
- Urgent Hospital Readmissions are Avoidable in Nearly One out of Five Cases
- Medical Malpractice Risk Perception at Odds with the Reality
- Patients Need to Act Promptly in a Medical Mapractice Case
- Long-Term Care and Nursing Home Legislation Mandates Health Care and Prohibits Neglect and Abuse
- Recent Study Finds Doctors Unrevealing About Treatment Options
- Higher Standards in Hospital Policies
- Whither Medical Malpractice Compensation
-
Recent Posts
- Chronic Pain Injury Compensation
- Patient Ombudsman of Ontario A New Complaint Process
- Recent Medical Malpractice Case Shows What Can Happen When You Don’t Have A Lawyer
- Medical Malpractice Law Firms Owe a Duty of Loyalty
- Misdiagnosis of Cancer Cases Amount to 1 in 10 Settlements
- Medical Error Caused by Prevalent and Pervasive Surgeon Fatigue
- Medical Malpractice Claims Studied for Litigation Rate
- Rate of Prescribing Errors in General Practice Revealed
- Pathology Errors Continue at Windsor Hospitals
- Misdiagnosed Patient
- Consequences of Bariatric Surgery Malpractice
- Measures of Hospital Safety are Incomplete
- Wrong Level Spine Surgery
- Medical Negligence Claims Shown to Improve Patient Safety
- Nine Types of Pharmacist Negligence
- Twelve Hospital Negligence Errors
- A Survival Guide to Obstetrical Malpractice for 2012 at the Mount Sinai Hospital
- Failure to Diagnose Cancer Cases Explained
- Urgent Hospital Readmissions are Avoidable in Nearly One out of Five Cases
- Medical Malpractice Risk Perception at Odds with the Reality
- Teaching Medical Malpractice Advocacy at the University of Toronto
- Medical Device Approval Process Is Defective
- Medical Errors Continue to Harm Patients According to a New Study
- Urological Medical Malpractice
- Lung Cancer and Medical Malpractice
- Wrong Site Surgery Increases After the Introduction of the Universal Protocol
- Practical Car Accident Tips
- Patients Need to Act Promptly in a Medical Mapractice Case
- Sudbury Regional Hospital Emergency Department Performance Worsening
- Long-Term Care and Nursing Home Legislation Mandates Health Care and Prohibits Neglect and Abuse
- Surgeons and Referring Physicians are Responsible for Wrong Site and Patient Procedures
- Recent Study Finds Doctors Unrevealing About Treatment Options
- Medical Malpractice Lawsuits Require Expert Opinion Evidence before Trial
- Gastric Banding Concerns for Teenagers
- Cataracts Lead to Diagnostic Errors
- Drug Side Effect Reporting
- The Elderly Continue to be at Risk from Anti-Psychotic Medication
- Champix Safety Brought into Question
- Surgeons Can Do More to Reduce the Risk of Infection
- Never Events Responsible for Every Sixth Claim
- Chelation Study Suspended
- Joint Commission Alert: Prevent Blood Thinner Deaths and Overdoses: Anticoagulant therapy linked to high rate of errors
- Antibiotic use in pregnancy linked to cerebral palsy
- Canada’s health care fares poorly when compared to Western Europe
- The Vulnerable Hurt by Caps on Medical Malpractice Claims
- Vaccine Risk Declarations and Nurses
- Loss of Chance in the Medical Case Alive in Massachusetts
- Higher Standards in Hospital Policies
- Drug Safety
- Promotion of Patient’s Rights of Regulatory Concern
Ways To Connect
Categories
Surgeons and Referring Physicians are Responsible for Wrong Site and Patient Procedures
A revealing report of an analysis of a prospective physician insurance database containing 27,370 physician self-reported adverse occurrences in the state of Colorado from January 1, 2002, to June 1, 2008 has appeared in the Archives of Surgery Journal.
The study which was looking only for certain surgical events found that a total of 25 wrong-patient and 107 wrong-site procedures were identified during the study period. Significant harm was inflicted in 5 wrong-patient procedures (20.0%) and 38 wrong-site procedures (35.5%). One patient died secondary to a wrong-site procedure (0.9%). The main root causes leading to wrong-patient procedures were errors in diagnosis (56.0%)and errors in communication (100%), whereas wrong-site occurrences were related to errors in judgment (85.0%) and the lack of performing a “time-out” (72.0%). Nonsurgical specialties were involved in the cause of wrong-patient procedures and contributed equally with surgical disciplines to adverse outcome related to wrong-site occurrences.
The authors conclude that the data reveals a persisting high frequency of surgical “never events.” They call for strict adherence to the “Universal Protocol” by nonsurgical specialties to promote a zero-tolerance philosophy for these preventable incidents.