One in ten suffers medical error

Hospital errors affect one in every ten in-patients, claim researchers.

Published: 12/04

LONDON, UK - (HealthTech Wire) - Writing in Quality and Safety in Health Care, researchers from the University of York argue that half of these cases were preventable and more money needs to be spent on monitoring “adverse events”.

The researchers focussed on a single major acute hospital in England, and studied the notes of 1,006 people admitted into it.

Results suggested that:

• 87 people had suffered an adverse event.
• Adverse events led to an increase in stay of eight days.

The preventable harm identified by the researchers was:

• Skin burned with diathermy tool during operation.
• Delay in cancer diagnosis.
• Bleeding from penis after catheter removed without deflating balloon.
• Spleen torn during operation – patient needed six litres of blood to survive.
• Patient addicted to painkillers after high dose continued after discharge.