NEW INFORMATION

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For updated information on recalls and safety hazards of medical devices, click this link to ECRI (formerly the Emergency Care Research Institute)

Articles:

RNs Tell How Often Errors Occur

A national sample of 2,737 hospital nurses were asked about 3 types of errors: delayed or missed treatments or medications, wrong medication or dose, and hospital-acquired infections. The percentage of nurses who said these errors occur at least weekly were:

• Delayed or missed treatment/medications: 34%
• Wrong medication or dose: 8%
• Hospital-acquired infections: 10%
• Medical-surgical nurses reported the highest percentage of delayed or missed treatment/medication (44%)
• Psychiatric nurses reported the highest percentage of wrong medication or dose (14%)
• Intensive Care nurses reported the most hospital-acquired infections (18%).

RN, July 2001 Vol. 64, p.14

More on Medical Errors

A Colorado-based health data company, HealthGrades released a report stating that as many as 195,000 people a year may be dying in U.S. hospitals as a result of preventable errors. This estimate doubles the previous figure released by the Institute of Medicine. The HealthGrades study included as mistakes: failure to rescue dying patients and deaths of low-risk patients from infections; neither of which was included by the IOM. The company looked at 3 years of Medicare data in all 50 states and Washington D.C. It found that 1.14 million “patient safety incidents” among 37 million hospitalizations.

Further information can be found at www.healthgrades.com.