Report: No Serious Medical Errors In LP County

By Deborah Sederberg, The News-Dispatch

Indiana has become one of only two states to institute a standardized medical error reporting system based on national standards.

The Indiana Department of Health this week released a preliminary report indicating that 77 medical errors, many of which led to serious disability or death, had occurred at Indiana hospitals in 2006.

In 1999, in response to a report from the President's Advisory Commission on Consumer Protection and Quality in the Health Care Industry, the National Quality Forum, a not-for-profit public-private partnership, was formed.

Indiana's Medical Error Reporting System is based on the National Quality Forum's 27 serious reportable events. Indiana is second only to Minnesota in developing a mandatory health event reporting system.

“Like Minnesota's system, the Indiana Medical Error Reporting System has been a collaborative effort with strong support from Indiana's health care community and a shared goal of improving patient safety,” the Indiana document reports.

The 27 serious events are divided into six categories: Surgery, products or devices, patient protection, care management, environmental and criminal.

Included in the surgical category are errors such as surgery performed on the wrong body part, surgery on the wrong patient, wrong surgical procedure performed on a patient and retention of foreign object following surgery or other invasive procedure.

Product or device events include patient death or serious disability associated with use of contaminated drugs, devices and also death or serious disability associated with devices that function improperly.

The protection category includes incidents of suicide or attempted suicide causing death or serious disability and the discharge of an infant to the wrong person.

Care management events include death or serious disability associated with medical errors involving drugs and dosages and time of dosage; also under care management are errors associated with incompatible blood products; also, maternal death or serious disability associated with labor or delivery in a low-risk pregnancy and the development of certain bed sores.

The environmental category includes events such as patient death or serious disability associated with electric shock or burns or the use of restraints or a patient fall.

Finally, included under criminal events are abduction and sexual assault, plus death or significant injury of a patient or staff member resulting from a physical assaults within the grounds of the facility.

None of the 77 serious errors reported by the Department of Health occurred in LaPorte County, according to the report.

In neighboring St. Joseph County, according to the report, Memorial Hospital had one reportable incident - the wrong procedure performed on a patient.

St. Joseph Hospital in Mishawaka also had one, retention of a foreign object in a patient following surgery or other invasive procedure.

In Porter County, Porter Health (formerly Porter Memorial Hospital) had four incidents, two cases of surgery performed on the wrong body part and two advanced-stage bed sores.

AP contributed to this report.

Story posted: 03/12/07