Posted by Sten Westgard, MS

Here's an eye-opening report from the Office of Inspector General from the Department of Health and Human Services: Adverse Events in Hospitals: National Incidence Among Medicare Beneficiaries

So what's your best guess on the frequency of adverse events?

A new study in Clinical Chemistry investigated the errors rates for Point-of-Care (POC) devices:

Quality Error Rates in Point-of-Care Testing, O'Kane MJ, McManus P, McGowan N, Lynch PL, Clin Chem 2011 Sep;57(9):1267-1.

Can you guess what the error rates were?

Posted by Sten Westgard, MS

A lot of interesting studies coming out this month, unfortunately none of them with encouraging news about the US healthcare system.

The latest, from Sunil Eappen, MD, Atul Gawande, MD et al, Relationship Between Occurence of Surgical Complications and Hospital Finances, JAMA, April 17, 2013, Vol. 309, No. 15 1599-1606

Take a guess: do US hospitals make more money when things go wrong, or less?

Posted by Sten Westgard, MS

Can you guess which of these categories is the leading source of successful malpractice claims?

• Surgical mishaps
• Obstetrical problems
• Medication errors
• Anesthesia disasters
• Diagnostic errors
• Treatment errors
• Something else entirely?

The answer, after the jump...

Posted by Sten Westgard, MS

A recent news investigation produced a litany of laboratory errors. Can you guess which of these lab errors actually happened?

• a blood screening test fails to identify a critical blood disorder in a pregnant woman. Her child dies 3 weeks after being born
• an HIV test falsely identifies a husband as HIV positive. The couple separates, the wife unwilling to trust the husband anymore.
• a paternity test sample gets switched: a father is falsely told that his daughter is not his biological child. The family splits up. Nearly 4 years later, the laboratory contacts him and tells him he was the father. The father-daughter bond remains broken.

The answer, after the jump.

Posted by Sten Westgard, MS

Diagnostic errors are one of the "new" hot topics in the healthcare field. A new study from British Medical Journal of Quality and Safety has a chilling estimate of just how common diagnostic errors are occurring in outpatient settings.

So what's your guess? How often in the US are diagnostic errors being made in outpatient settings?

• about 1 in 5 visits
• about 1 in 10 visits
• about 1 in 20 visits
• about 1 in 50 visits
• about 1 in 100 visits

The study's conclusion, after the jump...

Posted by Sten Westgard, MS

We've all heard the infamous quote now over a decade and a half old: that US hospitals kill between roughly 40,000 and 90,000 patients each year. This was an estimate courtesy of the Institute of Medicine report "To Err Is Human" which made the dire performance of hospitals knowledge that even the general public could understand.

But more recently, studies have been tracking the adverse event rates much more closely. A recent NEJM paper followed four conditions from 2005 to 2011.

Of these four conditions, which do you think has the best Sigma performance when it comes to the occurrence of adverse events?

A. Acute Myocardial Infarction (AMI)

B. Congestive Heart Failure

C. Pneumonia

D. (other) Conditions Requiring Surgery

The answer, after the jump...

Posted by Sten Westgard, MS

Laboratories in the US probably already know this: their healthcare institutions are getting hit with fines from CMS due to excessive 30-day readmission rates for three conditions:

• (AMI) Acute myocardial infarction
• (HF) Heart Failure
• Pneumonia patients

CMS is imposing increasing fines for hospitals that have excessive readmissions. Guess how many hospitals have been fined - and how much money they've had to pay back...