Hospitals report fewer preventable mistakes

Surgery300x199

[Star Tribune, January 23, 2014] While acknowledging that one error is too many, hospital officials said patients are safer than they were 10 years ago when Minnesota first started publicly listing hospitals that committed any of 28 adverse events, also known as “never events” because they are considered preventable. Surgeries to the wrong body part, for example, declined from 31 three years ago to 17 last year. But the numbers don’t tell the whole story, said Dr. Penny Wheeler, president and chief clinical officer of Allina Health, the system that runs Abbott Northwestern in Minneapolis and 12 other hospitals. Read the entire story at startribune.com. Hear a related story at mpr.org.

Share this article