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posted by martyb on Tuesday October 27 2015, @07:27PM   Printer-friendly
from the added-surgical-risk dept.

About half of all surgeries involve some kind of medication error or unintended drug side effects, if a new study done at one of America’s most prestigious academic medical centers is any indication.

The rate, calculated by researchers from the anesthesiology department at Massachusetts General Hospital who observed 277 procedures there, is startlingly high compared with those in the few earlier studies. Those earlier studies relied mostly on self-reported data from clinicians, rather than directly watching operations, and found errors to be exceedingly rare.

“There is a substantial potential for medication-related harm and a number of opportunities to improve safety,” according to the new study, published today in the journal Anesthesiology . More than one-third of the observed errors led to some kind of harm to the patient.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-25/health-medication-errors-happen-in-half-of-all-surgeries

[Also Covered By]: http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/story/medication-errors-occur-half-surgeries-mgh-study-finds/2015-10-26


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  • (Score: 2) by RedBear on Tuesday October 27 2015, @10:32PM

    by RedBear (1734) on Tuesday October 27 2015, @10:32PM (#255308)

    From my not-quite six decade perspective, this is a cyclical thing. As a kid of maybe 15, I recall an expose on surgeons leaving swabs and sponges inside of their patients. Another some years later about women receiving Caeserian sections when it was unwarranted. Another time, it was anasthesiologists who were screwing up. Next up, as I recall, was administration of medicines in the hospital's general population. This time up, it's medication in the OR.
    Don't get me wrong - every mistake is a serious mistake, and someone's life is jeopardized by those mistakes. But, seriously - who does NOT make mistakes?
    If there's a serious problem, this will blow up into a major national scandal. But, I suspect that this study is going to fade rapidly, because it's not serious enough to take action. In a few years, there will be another expose on some other aspect of health care.
    What I want to see, is for everyone to go after the insurance companies. They are responsible for much that is wrong with "health care" in this nation.

    It's so easy to fall into the mental trap of defeatist thinking, isn't it? I do it too, all the time. Everyone does. But the truth remains: People die from mistakes like this, and that should be an unacceptable outcome. Any major harm to the patient from medical mistakes should always be considered an unacceptable outcome, if there is anything within reason that we can do about it. It's so interesting the reactions to this that both acknowledge that this is a serious issue and then immediately brush it off by stating that it isn't serious enough to bother doing anything about it. If it's possible to take some simple steps to significantly reduce the incidence of mistakes and thus their negative outcomes, why would you not want to push for that? It could save thousands, even tens of thousands, of lives and billions of dollars that would otherwise be lost to lost productivity, malpractice suits and wrongful death claims.

    What's important about this study is not that it reveals that clinicians make mistakes. Yes, everyone makes mistakes. But it reveals that clinicians are still (like all of us) convinced that they are significantly more competent and less error-prone than they actually are. They believe they don't make many mistakes. It's another clear indicator that when you let any group self-report anything the resulting information is almost always (either deliberately or accidentally) an unreliable load of hogwash. With more accurate independently-observed information like this we can at least begin to spend time and effort focusing on the most commonly observed mistakes that have the most negative health outcomes. You know, like DEATH.

    I for one certainly hope that this isn't going to fade away, because it absolutely _is_ serious enough to take action. And I'll bet the insurance companies who want to pay out for fewer wrongful death suits will be very interested in making sure someone does something with this information, so they can increase their profit margin. I don't think we're anywhere close to the point of diminishing returns for being able to improve outcomes in the medical world, as you've implied here. Clincians throughout our nation are still making way too many easily avoidable stupid mistakes that have deadly outcomes. I am absolutely not cool with that.

    Don't be defeatist. Don't just brush this off. We can, should, and must do something about this. At the very least we need more independent-observer studies like this, and less self-reported BS that tells us nothing useful.

    --
    ¯\_ʕ◔.◔ʔ_/¯ LOL. I dunno. I'm just a bear.
    ... Peace out. Got bear stuff to do. 彡ʕ⌐■.■ʔ
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  • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday October 27 2015, @10:44PM

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday October 27 2015, @10:44PM (#255314) Journal

    No matter what you do, you won't survive it.

    Or, as I prefer to put it, don't take life so seriously, it's just temporary.

    Your second paragraph makes a lot of sense though. No group should get away with self reporting, self analyzing, and self grading itself. That's the problem with the police today. They really answer to nobody.