A study of 26 hospitals conducted by Tufts-New England Medical Center, Boston, found that 92,547 medical errors or adverse events took place at the organizations between Jan. 1, 2001 and Sept. 30, 2003. The study was posted online on Jan. 9 by the Journal of General Internal Medicine. The study was conducted in part to determine the potential of Web-based software to improve error reporting.
Tufts-New England researchers analyzed self-reported data from hospitals that used an online electronic error reporting system from Doctor Quality Inc., Philadelphia, for at least three months. Of the total number of medical errors reported, 32% caused temporary harm to patients. Less than 1% caused life-threatening harm or death.
Further, 34% were nonmedication related clinical events; 33% were medication related events; 13% were falls; 13% were administrative and 6% were labeled as "other." Nurses reported 47% of the events while physicians reported 1.4%.
While not commenting on the volume of errors, researchers said Web-based software enables error data to be collected four times faster than by other methods, which in turn enables facilities to more easily identify and analyze practice patterns that lead to errors. They also say that such systems enable near misses to be routinely recorded and all data to be peer-reviewed and protected on hospital networks.
The study was partially funded by grants from the Ruth Kirschstein Individual National Research Service Award and the Agency for Health Research and Quality. Participating hospitals ranged from 120 to 582 beds.
For more information, go to tufts-nemc.org.
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