[yvonne johnson]

This story reports on fatal radiation overdose.
NYT


Pictures of Ms. Jn-Charles's gaping chest on p. 2....not a pretty sight.

[Rail Paul]

The story is very depressing. So many things go wrong, and there seems to be a lack of accountability in some places.

As part of a 2009 stimulus bill, the feds set aside a substantial amount of taxpayer money to encourage doctors and hospitals to invest in shareable electronic records. Hopefully, as more clinical information on specific patients (allergies, X-ray cumulative exposures, etc) becomes integrated, these horrible results will become a thing of the past.

[yvonne johnson]

I think what's noteworthy but not surprising is that the existence of technology seemed to override the powers of simple observation (even including the reading of messages of error emitting from that very technology--e.g, wedge in/wedge out) that could've identified gross mistakes.

[splinky]

there's a lot to be said for a live practitioner caring about a patient or at least the level of care and double checking things. an "oops, the machine wasn't properly calibrated" doesn't solve the problem. and i hate to think about what happens when electronic treatment records get mixed up, combined or a crucial bit of info falls off the digital record. i have a cousin with a similar name, born in the same year and we both live in ny. our records have been confused more than once.

[Rail Paul]

there's a lot to be said for a live practitioner caring about a patient or at least the level of care and double checking things. an "oops, the machine wasn't properly calibrated" doesn't solve the problem. and i hate to think about what happens when electronic treatment records get mixed up, combined or a crucial bit of info falls off the digital record. i have a cousin with a similar name, born in the same year and we both live in ny. our records have been confused more than once.

All excellent points, of course.

My concern is the separate islands of data now maintained for patients (doctor's office, hospital, lab work, insurer's records, etc) expand the number of situations where something should have been known, and wasn't. The old "failure to connect the dots" problem.

Toward the end of her life, my mother in law was on a dozen drugs from four different, and non-communicating, doctors. Her pharmacist's automated system to identify possible interactions caught several potentially dangerous combinations before the orders were filled.

[splinky]

there's a lot to be said for a live practitioner caring about a patient or at least the level of care and double checking things. an "oops, the machine wasn't properly calibrated" doesn't solve the problem. and i hate to think about what happens when electronic treatment records get mixed up, combined or a crucial bit of info falls off the digital record. i have a cousin with a similar name, born in the same year and we both live in ny. our records have been confused more than once.

All excellent points, of course.

My concern is the separate islands of data now maintained for patients (doctor's office, hospital, lab work, insurer's records, etc) expand the number of situations where something should have been known, and wasn't. The old "failure to connect the dots" problem.

Toward the end of her life, my mother in law was on a dozen drugs from four different, and non-communicating, doctors. Her pharmacist's automated system to identify possible interactions caught several potentially dangerous combinations before the orders were filled.

that seems more like an argument to run everything through one practitioner who will pay attention. each of the 4 doctors had a responsibility to take a full history and ask what she was currently taking and insist that she check with them before adding anything new or they could make the effort to communicate. i do understand that the more access to specialists or treatment at separate facilities that one has, the less likely one is to get truly coordinated care.

[Ron Johnson]

Almost 200,000 people die each year from preventable medical errors in hospitals and other healthcare settings. It is tragic. Developments like electronic medical records may help in some instances.

[Peter Creasey]

My mother-in-law was slain when, during open heart surgery, a member of the surgical team (a full physician) hooked up the heart-lung machine backwards i.e. blood to the lungs and oxygen to the brain.

Humans make honest mistakes.

[Lippy]

My mother-in-law was slain when, during open heart surgery, a member of the surgical team (a full physician) hooked up the heart-lung machine backwards i.e. blood to the lungs and oxygen to the brain.

Humans make honest mistakes.

Honest mistakes and poor outcomes are quite different from medical malpractice, but those who are constantly crying for tort reform fail to see the differences.

[Orik]

Almost 200,000 people die each year from preventable medical errors in hospitals and other healthcare settings. It is tragic. Developments like electronic medical records may help in some instances.

8.5% of all deaths are caused by preventable medical errors?

[ghostrider]

Almost 200,000 people die each year from preventable medical errors in hospitals and other healthcare settings. It is tragic. Developments like electronic medical records may help in some instances.

8.5% of all deaths are caused by preventable medical errors?

That's what it says in Scientific American, albeit with some qualifications.

Spend 30 seconds with Google & you'll find dozens of links on this.

[Miguel Gierbolini]

.i have a cousin with a similar name

Cousin blinky?

[Ron Johnson]

Almost 200,000 people die each year from preventable medical errors in hospitals and other healthcare settings. It is tragic. Developments like electronic medical records may help in some instances.

8.5% of all deaths are caused by preventable medical errors?

yes. it's the equivalent of a fully loaded commercial airliner crashing everyday and killing everyone on board. If that happened, we'd ground every plane in the country, but it's business as usual at hospitals.

Most of this negligence does fall into the category of "honest mistakes". I doubt one can find many instances when it is done intentionally. Still, it is tragic because it is preventable.

[splinky]

.i have a cousin with a similar name

Cousin blinky?

cousin splinki, actually

[Carolyn Tillie]

And this just in... Doctors in Peru amputate the wrong foot.