Medical errors typically go unreported, OIG report says

WASHINGTON D.C. — Hospital employees only report 14 percent of the events — including medical errors — that harm patients. And they typically don't make changes in how things are done that could improve patient safety, according to a study released Friday by the Inspector General in the Department of Health and Human Services, Daniel R. Levinson.

An independent review of patient records found the dismal reporting number, according to the Consumers Union.

By federal law, hospitals must track all medical errors and adverse events that hurt patients. They are also required to take preventive steps to protect patients. Medical errors and adverse events can include everything from giving a patient the wrong medication or dose to operating on a wrong body part to much less dramatic events.

Levinson told the New York Times that even some of the most serious errors, resulting in patient deaths, were not reported as required by the law. And the study found that only 5 of 293 reported cases of medical errors that were in the review led to changes in how things are done.

"Medical mistakes are one of the biggest problems we have in health care today," said Dr. Manny Alvarez, senior managing health editor of FoxNews.com, said in a story there. "We're beginning to see that with more monitoring, we are identifying more problems. The issue however, is that you have to learn from mistakes — and there are still many doctors and hospitals that do not do that."

"One in four hospital patients is harmed by medical errors and infections, which translates to about 9 million people each year," said Lisa McGiffert, director of Consumers Union's Safe Patient Project, in a written statement. "Today's report confirms what many other studies have already documented. Hospitals are doing a very poor job of tracking preventable infections and medical errors and making the changes necessary to keep patients safe. It's time that hospitals make patient safety a priority."

A 2010 study by the OIG said close to 180,000 Medicare patients a year experience medical errors in the hospital that contribute to their death. It also estimated that the cost of harm to Medicare patients each year is close to $4.4 billion.

While hospitals are required to report medical errors that cause harm to a patient, the information is usually not made public, for fear it would have a "chilling effect" on such reporting. Utah, for instance, is among many states that promise not to release the information publicly, in order to encourage reporting.