Mistakes Still Prevalent in Hospital Care, Study Finds

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Efforts to make hospitals safer for patients are falling short, researchers report in the first large study in a decade to analyze harm from medical care and to track it over time.

The study, conducted from 2002 to 2007 in 10 North Carolina hospitals, found that harm to patients was common and that number of incidents did not decrease over time. The most common problems were complications from procedures or drugs and hospital-acquired infections.

“It is unlikely that other regions of the country have fared better,” said Dr. Christopher P. Landrigan, the lead author of the study and an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School. The study is being published on Thursday in The New England Journal of Medicine.

It is one of the most rigorous efforts to collect data about patient safety since a landmark report in 1999 found that medical mistakes caused as many as 98,000 deaths and more than one million injuries a year in the United States. That report, by the Institute of Medicine, an independent group that advises the government on health matters, led to a national movement to reduce errors and make hospital stays less hazardous to patients’ health.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/25/health/research/25patient.html

[billlll]

1. one Hosp. HAS cut MRSA-- somewhere in PA?

Was on a 60 minutes type show

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3. The problem is you have to be meticulous, and that costs money.

You have to have enough people, they have to have enough time, they have to be trained, they have to have proper supplies etc., they have to be supervised.

[leftyladyfrommo]

2. Best just to stay as healthy as possible.

I have a friend who had a shoulder replaced two years ago. She almost died from complications - shoulder was fine but she developed blood clots.

Now she has to have the other shoulder done. I'm scared to death.

[bemildred]

4. I think that is the whole point of "health care", to stay healthy.

So anything that helps keep you healthy, like proper diet say, is health care.