2001 Citations to the Institute of Medicine Report     These are "leads" only - Contact publishers for full text.

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Other Years - Headlines:  1999.2000.2001.2002.2003
Other Years - Leads:        1999.2000.2001.2002.2003  (These are large files)

Albuquerque Journal
December 26, 2001 Wednesday
Health Systems Take Huge, Necessary Step
Editorials
No federal law requires hospitals to report errors, so information is sketchy. But the figures conceded by the medical profession are appalling: The Institute of Medicine estimates 44,000 to 98,000 people die unnecessarily in American hospitals each year.
Estimates on the number of potentially life-threatening errors in the state are high as well, ranging from 5,000 to 120,000 a year.

Sydney Morning Herald
December 18, 2001
Letters

Albuquerque Journal
December 16, 2001 Sunday
fatal Flaws
Estimates show medical mistakes kill tens of thousands every year in U.S. hospitals
This is the first in a two-part series on errors that occur at hospitals. Today: Too many deaths
Take the World Trade Center attack and its estimated 3,000 fatalities. Then multiply by 14. The Institute of Medicine estimates at least that many are killed by mistakes in American hospitals every year.
"The Institute of Medicine conclusion that 44,000 to 98,000 people die unnecessarily each year in American hospitals is the equivalent of a 747 crashing every day," said Jim Hinton, chief executive officer of Presbyterian Healthcare Services. "No one would tolerate that, but that is the level of the problem in the health-care industry."

THE HARTFORD COURANT
December 13, 2001 Thursday, 7 SPORTS FINAL
HEALING WITH COMPUTERS;
DOCTORS ARE PROPOSING A MODEL NETWORK USING COMPUTER TECHNOLOGY TO REDUCE ERRORS PLAGUING U.S. HEALTH CARE.
Your doctor has the weekend off, so the call goes to another physician in his practice, who is out to dinner.
It's the hospital where you are a patient calling with a question about a prescription drug you have been taking. The doctor who takes the call has never seen you but pulls a wallet-size device from his pocket, dials up your records and gives the hospital instructions.

The Washington Post
December 13, 2001, Thursday, Final Edition
VA Medical System to Get Harvard Innovation Award; Reporting, Handling of Health Care Errors to Be Cited
The Department of Veterans Affairs health care system, long derided as a bloated bureaucratic mess, will be singled out for praise today for its efforts to improve the way medical errors and close calls are reported by health care workers and handled by hospital administrators.
VA's National Center for Patient Safety (NCPS) will be the only federal program among five winners of the annual Innovations in American Government awards from the Institute for Government Innovation at Harvard University. The awards are to be announced today.
Gail Christopher, executive director of the institute, said the NCPS is helping foster a "healthier culture of communication" in which health care workers at VA's 173 medical centers are far more likely to report mistakes or close calls than in years past.

Chest
December 1, 2001
Infection control in the ICU *; critical care reviews.
Nosocomial infections (NIs) now concern 5 to 15% of hospitalized patients and can lead to complications in 25 to 33% of those patients admitted to ICUs. The most common causes are pneumonia related to mechanical ventilation, intra-abdominal infections following trauma or surgery, and bacteremia derived from intravascular devices. This overview is targeted at ICU physicians to convince them that the principles of infection control in the ICU are based on simple concepts and that the application of preventive strategies should not be viewed as an administrative or constraining control of their activity but, rather, as basic measures that are easy to implement at the bedside. A detailed knowledge of the epidemiology, based on adequate surveillance methodologies, is necessary to understand the pathophysiology and the rationale of preventive strategies that have been demonstrated to be effective. The principles of general preventive measures such as the implementation of standard and isolation precautions, and the control of antibiotic use are reviewed. Specific practical measures, targeted at the practical prevention and control of ventilator-associated pneumonia, sinusitis, and bloodstream, urinary tract, and surgical site infections are detailed. Recent data strongly confirm that these strategies may only be effective over prolonged periods if they can be integrated into the behavior of all staff members who are involved in patient care. Accordingly, infection control measures are to be viewed as a priority and have to be integrated fully into the continuous process of improvement of the quality of care.

HealthFacts
December 1, 2001
DRUG-RELATED HOSPITAL DEATHS ARE COMMON.
A new study from Norway found that nearly one out of five deaths of hospital patients are likely to be associated with a prescription drug (Archives of Internal Medicine, 10/22/01). The death rate is similar to that found in a 1998 study of U.S. hospitals.
The Norwegian researchers examined the records of all 732 patients who died of any cause while under care at Central Hospital of Akershus, Norway, over a two-year period. They then identified 133 patients whose death was associated with one or more drugs administered in the hospital. The researchers, led by Dr. Just Ebbesen, believe that theirs is the first study to routinely use both autopsy results and pre- and postmortem blood specimens for drug analysis in addition to medical records. Each hospital death was reviewed by the team of six researchers and a case by case consensus conference held to determine whether an adverse drug event was likely to be the cause of death or not. Most previous studies of drug-related hospital deaths have relied solely on medical records.

PR Newswire
November 15, 2001, Thursday
State of California Issues Guidelines for Medication Error Reduction Plans;
Healthcare Facilities Must Submit Formal Plans by Jan. 1
The State of California Department of Health Services (DHS) has issued guidelines for general acute care hospitals, surgical clinics and special hospitals to comply with Senate Bill (SB) 1875 by adopting a formal plan to eliminate or substantially reduce medication-related errors by Jan. 1, 2002.
(Photo:  http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/19991203/SFF009 )
The legislation was sponsored by California state Sen. Jackie Speier (D-San Francisco/San Mateo). A copy of SB 1875 may be obtained at www.leginfo.ca.gov under the 1999-2000 legislative session.
"Omnicell (Nasdaq: OMCL) is committed to reducing medication errors and increasing patient safety," said Omnicell CEO Shelly Asher. "Our automation solutions for healthcare organizations include technology that assists in reducing medication errors. It is important that all companies and organizations involved in healthcare be aware of guidelines such as the ones recently released by the State of California."
SB 1875 was enacted, in part, in response to the November 1999 Institute of Medicine's (IOM) report, "To Err Is Human: Building A Safer Health System" which indicates that every year a sizable number of Americans are harmed as a result of medical errors. This report cited studies that demonstrated approximately one-half of adverse events resulting from medical errors could have been prevented. The report went on to say that preventable adverse events are a leading cause of death in the United States. When extrapolated to the more than 33.6 million admissions to U.S. Hospitals in 1994, the results of these studies imply that at least 44,000 and perhaps as many as 98,000 Americans die in hospitals as a result of medical errors.

Pediatric Nursing
November 1, 2001
Lessons in liability for pediatric nurses.
The recent release of the Institute of Medicine Report on medical errors in the United States has led to intense media coverage and legislative interest in improving the safety of the nation's health care system. According to this report, between 44,000 and 98,000 people die each year in United States hospitals from medical errors (Reuters Medical News, 1999). As health care institutions implement more cost-effective ways to provide care, increasing demands are placed on nurses. Thus, nursing malpractice continues to be an area of concern for professional nurses. The 1998 National Practitioner Data Bank Annual Report's statistics show that 1,642 malpractice payments were made on behalf of registered nurses between September 1, 1990 and December 31, 1998. The most common malpractice reasons identified were monitoring, treatment, and medication problems (National Practitioner Data Bank, 1998). These statistics may reflect underreporting of nursing malpractice cases because of the difficulty in reporting and tracking cases where nurses are specifically named as defendants. Experts believe that many care providers underreport errors, most likely due to fear of consequences (Keepnews, 2000).
St. Petersburg Times
October 26, 2001, Friday, 1 North Pinellas Edition
New USF center wins federal grant
The federal government has announced funding for a new center at the University of South Florida designed to find ways to reduce patient falls and medication errors, particularly among the elderly.
The Suncoast Developmental Center for Patient Safety Evaluation & Research received $ 600,000 in startup funding from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and will be eligible for millions more in research funding.

St. Petersburg Times
October 25, 2001, Thursday, 2 Late Tampa Edition
New USF center wins $ 600,000 in federal funds
The federal government has announced funding for a new center at the University of South Florida designed to find ways to reduce patient falls and medication errors, particularly among the elderly.
The Suncoast Developmental Center for Patient Safety Evaluation & Research received $ 600,000 in startup funding from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and will be eligible for millions more in research funding.

Rocky Mountain News (Denver, CO)
October 23, 2001 Tuesday Final Edition
MISTAKES WAITING TO HAPPEN;
PHARMACY ERROR REPORTING HAS LOTS OF ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT
Michael Bird's Sept. 17 trip to the neighborhood pharmacy started out routinely: drop off the prescription, wait, pick up the drugs. With three young children, the Lakewood father had been through the drill before.
But this time, instead of grabbing the bag and hurrying home, Bird stopped to check the dosage of the medication he held in his hand. It didn't look right, he told the technician behind the counter.
After Bird insisted that she double-check with the pharmacist, the technician conceded that the dosage was wrong, Bird said. While it probably wasn't life-threatening, he'd been instructed to give his 3-year-old son three times the amount of oral steroids prescribed by his doctor, he said.

Business Wire
October 18, 2001, Thursday
Four Fortune 500 Companies Join Empire Blue Cross and Blue Shield to Recognize and Reward Hospitals That Achieve Leapfrog Safety Standards
Insurer to Provide Bonuses to Hospitals That Rapidly Adopt Proven Patient Safety Programs
IBM, PepsiCo, Inc., Verizon Communications and Xerox Corporation announced today that they will join Empire Blue Cross and Blue Shield in an innovative program designed to save lives by providing financial incentives to hospitals that rapidly achieve proven patient safety standards.
Under the program, hospitals that use computerized physician-order entry (CPOE) systems for prescription drugs and staff their intensive care units (ICU) with physicians board-certified or board-eligible in critical care medicine will receive a financial reward in recognition of their commitment to patient safety.
The patient safety standards were identified with the help of national patient safety experts by The Leapfrog Group, a Business Roundtable-sponsored program dedicated to improving patient safety. The organization's goal is to mobilize the purchasing power of employer groups to prompt advances in the safety and overall value of healthcare to consumers. The four Fortune 500 companies are Leapfrog members, as is Empire.

Federal Document Clearing House Congressional Testimony
September 25, 2001, Tuesday
COMMITTEE: HOUSE EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE
NURSING SHORTAGE
September 25, 2001
Statement of Carolyn McCullough, RN National Coordinator, Nurse Alliance
Before the Committee on Education and the Workforce
Thank you, Chairman Boehner and Congressman Miller, for allowing me to testify at this hearing on behalf of the Service Employees International Union on the current nursing crisis in this country.
My name is Carolyn McCullough. I am a registered nurse (RN), and the National Coordinator for SEIU's Nurse Alliance. Today I am speaking on behalf of the 1.4 million members of SEIU, more than 710,000 of who work in the health care industry, more than 110,000 of whom are nurses, and more than 120,000 of whom work in nursing homes.
As we all know, this hearing was changed because of the devastating attacks on Sept. 11. Nothing will ever be the same again. As evidenced by these tragic events, thousands of people needed medical care, and nurses were on the frontlines delivering this care. Like any essential emergency personnel, nurses are always ready to provide whatever care is needed in times of crisis, without being asked and without concern about time or being paid. This is what happened on Sept. 11th in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania. But a crisis like this highlights the essential need to have adequate numbers of nurses available. For this reason, addressing the current nursing crisis and the impending shortage is imperative.

Canadian Business and Current Affairs
Medical Post
September 25, 2001
Medical errors the result of recurring system failures: junior doctors often put in charge without senior MDs to turn to for advice [Halifax Medical Error Symposium]
HALIFAX - That teaching hospitals can be dangerous environments for doctors
and their patients was underscored in research presented here at Canada's
first major medical errors symposium.
Speakers at the Halifax Medical Error Symposium made reference to studies
done in a number of countries, including the U.S., Australia, Israel and
the U.K., suggesting the error rate in hospitals is about twice that of
other hazardous industrial environments.
Most medical errors involve junior doctors in over their heads and
improperly supervised. But the presenters who discussed the issue said
junior doctors were not the ones to blame. Instead, the issue should be
flagged as a recurring example of system failure.

Canadian Business and Current Affairs
Medical Post
September 25, 2001
Medical errors the result of recurring system failures: junior doctors often put in charge without senior MDs to turn to for advice [Halifax Medical Error Symposium]
HALIFAX - That teaching hospitals can be dangerous environments for doctors
and their patients was underscored in research presented here at Canada's
first major medical errors symposium.
Speakers at the Halifax Medical Error Symposium made reference to studies
done in a number of countries, including the U.S., Australia, Israel and
the U.K., suggesting the error rate in hospitals is about twice that of
other hazardous industrial environments.
Most medical errors involve junior doctors in over their heads and
improperly supervised. But the presenters who discussed the issue said
junior doctors were not the ones to blame. Instead, the issue should be
flagged as a recurring example of system failure.

Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics
September 22, 2001
Managing care in the new era of "systems-think": the implications for managed care organizational liability and patient safety.
Three major trends in American health policy are intersecting in a fascinating way. First, managed care has grown to become the most dominant form of health-care delivery, leading to reductions in health-care costs as insurers are able to influence health-care providers with financial incentives. Second, the present growth of managed care has slowed, almost to a standstill, largely on account of consumers questioning what effects these financial incentives are having on the care of patients -- questioning that has been expressed in particular through lawsuits against managed care companies.
Third, we are experiencing a renewed interest in the existence of medical error and how it may be reduced as a result of the Institute of Medicine's (IOM) report, To Err Is Human: Building a Safer Health System. (1) The most important aspect of this renaissance in error reduction has been its emphasis on health care as a system that can be made better through system-oriented change. The most frustrating aspect is that the IOM did not endorse change in malpractice liability, which consistently puts the impetus for reducing medical error on the individual provider rather than the system as a whole.

Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics
September 22, 2001
Quality control, enterprise liability, and disintermediation in managed care.
The Institute of Medicine (IOM) has returned the problem of medical error to the top of the health-care agenda. Its report that 44,000 to 98,000 patients die each year as a result of medical errors in American hospitals has renewed scholarly interest in health system quality control. (1) In To Err Is Human, the IOM provides a vivid picture of a health-care system riven with serious quality problems. It calls for systems-based error-reduction methods borrowed from other high-risk industries and forcefully argues against the traditional tendency to assign accountability primarily to individual physicians. Most errors, the IOM argues, can be successfully addressed by engineering systemic fail-safe protections against the inevitable failings of human actors.

NBER Reporter
September 22, 2001
Medical care and economywide price indexes.
Joseph P. Newhouse (*)
It is well known that price indexes for service industries are subject to considerable error. However, errors in medical care price indexes are particularly significant because of that sector's share of the economy. Although the United States is an outlier with more than 13 percent of its GDP devoted to medical care in recent years, the share for other developed countries--typically between 7 and 11 percent--generally has been rising. The accuracy--or inaccuracy--of medical care price indexes has become sufficiently important that Alan Greenspan has taken note of it publicly. (1)

Business & Health
September 1, 2001
Medical error deaths overestimated?Brief Article
The well-publicized Institute of Medicine report about the magnitude of deaths attributed to medical errors--anywhere from 44,000 to 98,000 deaths a year--is questioned by a new study in the July 25 Journal of the American Medical Association. The reason? Peer review of patients' charts is subjective and error prone and does not account for patients' level of sickness, short-term prognosis and differing treatment options, according to researchers from the Veterans Affairs Ann Arbor Healthcare System and the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

Nursing Management
September 1, 2001
Improve patient safety by leapfrogs and bounds; Brief Article
Abstract: The Leapfrog Group recommends that payers, providers, and vendors collaborate to develop patient safety solutions. [Nurs Manage 2001:32(9):17-18]
Early last year, a group of leading FORTUNE 500 companies and other large health care purchasers responded to the Institute of Medicine's now-familiar statistics--44,000 to 98,000 deaths per year and a $ 29 billion price tag from medication errors--by forming the Leapfrog Group.
The Leapfrog Group's mission is to mobilize employer purchasing power to initiate breakthrough improvements in the safety and overall value of health care to American consumers.[1] The group advocates a voluntary program that recognizes and rewards big leaps in patient safety and customer value with preferential use and other intensified market reinforcements.[2] That's the carrot. The stick? If providers don't do something to improve patient safety, the nation's largest payers will take their business elsewhere.

Pharmaceutical Executive
September 1, 2001
From Grocery to Pharmacy.
How preventable are patient deaths? That's a subjective assessment, according to a July Journal of the American Medical Association article challenging the Institute of Medicine (IOM) report, Crossing the Quality Chasm: A New Health System for the 21st Century. The article echoes many other critics who have questioned the veracity and methodology of research that estimates the number of patient deaths caused by medical errors to be between 44,000 and 98,000 annually.
Despite the flak, IOM's report, released March 21, has become the impetus for a host of patient safety improvement initiatives. Recently, the National Coordinating Council for Medication Error Reporting and Prevention published a white paper about the benefits of using grocery store technology to reduce medical errors. The paper galvanized advocates to urge hospitals and pharmacies to install machine-readable bar codes that will help protect patients from being given the wrong medication. The bar code is scanned into nurses' badges, then into the medication's label, and also into the patient's wrist band to record who gave the medication, what was given, what time it was administered, and who received it. Once a treatment is entered into the system, computer software searches to see if the appropriate tests were conducted to warrant medication.

RN
September 1, 2001
Study Says Number Of Error-Related Deaths Is Exaggerated; medical-error related deaths over reported
There may be far fewer deaths from medical errors than previously believed, according to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (vol. 286, no. 4, p. 415). The authors suggest that findings from the Institute of Medicine's well-publicized 1999 study (44,000 to 98,000 annual deaths from medical mistakes) may be a misleading interpretation of statistics.

The State Journal-Register (Springfield, IL)
August 27, 2001 Monday
Panel debates ways to reduce medical errors
The state's elected leaders should do more to reduce medical errors that kill an estimated 4,730 Illinoisans each year. There's little argument about that.
Illinois lawmakers heard some of the differing views last week when a state Senate committee met to discuss recommendations made earlier this year by Gov. George Ryan's Task Force on Patient Safety.
"There's been a lot of concern and a lot of frustration" about medical errors, said committee Chairman Sen. J. Bradley Burzynski, R-Sycamore. His committee would play a role in scrutinizing any legislation the governor might propose while the task force continues its work in coming months.

Copley News Service
August 26, 2001 Sunday
RESENDING TO CORRECT ERROR IN 18th graff starting 'And Matheny': Should be HAVE union representation sted of LACK
FOR PUBLICATION SUNDAY, AUG. 26, 2001, or THEREAFTER
Lawmakers need to find prescription to eliminate fatal medical errors
The state's elected leaders should do more to reduce medical errors that kill an estimated 4,730 Illinoisans each year. There's little argument about that.
But when it comes to what course of action is best whether to help hospitals reduce the likelihood of mistakes, crack down on bad doctors and nurses, or arm consumers with more information that is where the disagreements emerge.
Illinois lawmakers heard some of the differing views last week when a state Senate committee met to discuss recommendations made earlier this year by Gov. George Ryan's Task Force on Patient Safety.

Copley News Service
August 24, 2001 Friday
FOR PUBLICATION SUNDAY, AUG. 26, 2001, or THEREAFTER
Lawmakers need to find prescription to eliminate fatal medical errors
The state's elected leaders should do more to reduce medical errors that kill an estimated 4,730 Illinoisans each year. There's little argument about that.
But when it comes to what course of action is best whether to help hospitals reduce the likelihood of mistakes, crack down on bad doctors and nurses, or arm consumers with more information that is where the disagreements emerge.
Illinois lawmakers heard some of the differing views last week when a state Senate committee met to discuss recommendations made earlier this year by Gov. George Ryan's Task Force on Patient Safety.

Investor's Business Daily
August 22, 2001
Hard To Gauge Cost Savings Of Technology
If an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, then preventing errors ought to yield a healthy return. That's the thinking at St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital. But it's hard to tell how big that return is. "The return on investment can't be measured only in dollars," said Gene Gretzer, the hospital's wireless project leader. "It's also in safety, increased efficiency and accountability." Better communication means fewer hospital deaths and injuries, studies say. Fewer lawsuits are the fringe benefit. The number and value of lawsuits against hospitals are impossible to quantify, says Amy Lee, a spokesman for the American Hospital Association in Washington, D.C. There's just too much information to sift through. "Often hospitals are named in suits that have nothing to do with patients or negligence issues," she said. Even the number of lives lost to medical errors is in dispute. A November 1999 report said 44,000 to 98,000 people die needlessly in U.S. hospitals each year. But the report - prepared by the Institute of Medicine, part of the Washington-based National Academies - drew lots of fire. Many experts called the number inflated. Troyen Brennan, a professor of law and medicine at Harvard University, said the number was closer to 25,000. And last month, the Journal of the American Medical Association reported that medical mistake studies are often flawed. The problem? Doctors can't agree on what defines a deadly error. The number of hospital deaths from errors could be as few as 5,000 to 15,000 a year, wrote Rodney Hayward, professor at the University of Michigan Medical School.

TELEGRAM & GAZETTE
August 10, 2001 Friday, ALL EDITIONS
Patient safety revisited;
Critique challenges number of preventable deaths
A critique of a shocking 1999 report on patient safety suggests the report's estimate of preventable deaths in hospitals was overblown. But the need for safeguards it dramatized remains real.
The original study by the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences made an assertion that was truly shocking. In hospitals alone, it estimated, medical errors kill 44,000 to 98,000 patients a year- more than the number of people who die from highway accidents (41,000), breast cancer (41,000) or AIDS (13,000).

Business Insurance
August 6, 2001, Monday
Study contradicts medical mistakes death figure
A new study is touching off renewed debate about a vexing issue that has preoccupied the health care community for the past two years: the annual death toll from medical errors in U.S. hospitals.
But instead of continued hand-wringing over ''body counts'' from medical mistakes, the provider community should instead focus squarely on maintaining its momentum in patient-safety initiatives, health care safety experts contend.
The new study, which examined patient deaths at seven Veterans' Affairs hospitals, suggests the oft-cited medical-error statistics in a landmark 1999 Institute of Medicine Report are ''probably unreliable'' and ''misleading.''
The new report implies that the number of preventable deaths attributable to medical errors is anywhere from 5,000 to 15,000-far below the widely publicized 44,000 to 98,000 figures in the IOM's 1999 report ''To Err is Human,'' which received so much national attention.

SOUTH BEND TRIBUNE
August 2, 2001 Thursday Michigan Edition
Medical mistakes should be tracked
In 1999, a report by the Institute of Medicine, a division of the National Academy of Sciences, claimed that mistakes by doctors and medical staff in the nation's hospitals lead to the deaths of 44,000 to 98,000 Americans each year.
The figure was quickly challenged by Dr. Clement J. McDonald, of the Indiana University School of Medicine. McDonald and two colleagues reviewed the Institute of Medicine's data and then wrote a letter to the Journal of the American Medical Association. The letter, published in July 2000, challenged the study methods used and said that the Institute of Medicine's report overstated medical errors and exaggerated the number of preventable deaths.

THE PANTAGRAPH (Bloomington, IL.)
August 1, 2001, Wednesday
Reports on deadly medical errors tell numbers, not pain

There may have been a colossal error in a study 2 1/2 years ago that suggested medical errors in hospitals kill 44,000 to 98,000 patients annually, but it was the kind of attention-grabber that has led to positive changes.
The latest Journal of the American Medical Association says the research reported in late 1999 was flawed and that the total would be closer to 5,000 to 15,000 patient deaths. However, one of the original authors charged that the latest study sampling was too small.

Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients
August 1, 2001
Charting the Mainstream; Adverse Events Not Reported, Employer Saves with CAM, JCAHO Non-Pharmacological Pain Guidelines, Provider Types and CAM for Cancer, Aetna Takes from Chiro to Pay for Drugs
Adverse Events Not Reported, Employer Saves with CAM, JCAHO Non-Pharmacological Pain Guidelines, Provider Types and CAM for Cancer, Aetna Takes from Chiro to Pay for Drugs
Adverse Events Not Reported
The Inspector General for the Department of Health and Human Services has issued a report which found that, in the last decade, 84% of HMOs and 60% of hospitals never reported to the National Practitioner Data Bank (NPDB) a single "adverse action" from any physician to the government. The NPDB was established in 1986 under federal law as an initiative to provide a national information source which would help protect consumers against poor quality medical professionals. All adverse events were to be reported. The NPDB is then used by hospitals and HMOs as a means of checking the background of physicians which these organizations choose to credential. For instance, managed care organizations, leaning on the NPDB for their credentialing processes, routinely submitted over 8 million queries in this period. But in the 10 year period, just 715 adverse events were reported by hospitals and 60 by physician groups, an average of roughly 77 reports per year. The finding is viewed as being of particular interest in ligh t of the National Academy of Sciences/Institute of Medicine (IOM) study from late 1999 which found that 44,000 to 98,000 Americans die each year as a result of medical errors. (One outcome of the IOM report was a call for "a nationwide mandatory-reporting system" to help health care providers learn from their mistakes.)

Urology Times
August 1, 2001
Hospitals required to inform patients of errors.
* The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations has released new rules requiring hospitals to inform patients when they've been the victims of medical errors.

World and I
August 1, 2001
Modern Healthcare
July 30, 2001, Monday
Keeping the emphasis on safety; IOM statistics on number of medical errors 'misleading,' JAMA report says
A new study has touched off renewed debate about a vexing issue that has preoccupied the healthcare community for the past two years: the annual death toll from medical errors in U.S. hospitals.
But instead of continued hand-wringing over ''body counts'' from medical mistakes, the provider community should instead focus squarely on maintaining its momentum in patient-safety initiatives, observers suggest.
The new study, which examined patient deaths at seven U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs hospitals, suggests the oft-cited medical-error statistics in the blockbuster 1999 Institute of Medicine Report are ''probably unreliable'' and ''misleading.''

SOUTH BEND TRIBUNE
July 25, 2001 Wednesday Marshall Edition
IU doctor rips medical-error numbers
Is it true that medical errors kill more patients in U.S. hospitals every six months than died during the entire Vietnam War?
Is it correct that the number of Americans who die due to medical mistakes is comparable to three loaded jumbo jets crashing every other day?
Absolutely not, says Dr. Clement J. McDonald, a professor at the Indiana University School of Medicine and director of the Regenstrief Institute for Health Care in Indianapolis. "Those numbers are preposterous."

CNN
SHOW: CNN LIVE TODAY 12:00
July 25, 2001 Wednesday
New Report Questions Number of Deaths from Medical Mistakes
LEAD: THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
NATALIE ALLEN, CNN ANCHOR: Some alarming statistics about the number of deaths from medical mistakes are being called into question. A report two years ago, you might remember, said medical errors kill as many as 98,000 Americans each year. But a new study finds fault with that earlier research.

The Hill
July 25, 2001 Wednesday
A new way to combat medical mistakes
In late 1999, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) issued a major report on medical mistakes entitled, "To Err is Human: Building a Safer Health Care System." This eye-opening study found that errors by healthcare professionals may result in the deaths of between 44,000 and 98,000 people in the United States every year, and injure countless others. Shockingly, more people die from avoidable medical errors each year than from highway accidents, breast cancer or AIDS.
Congress reacted swiftly to the IOM report. We and other members of the House and Senate introduced bills to implement the report's recommendations, and hearings on medical errors were held in various committees.

Bloomberg News
July 24, 2001, Tuesday 4:20 PM Eastern Time
HOSPITAL MEDICAL ERRORS ARE COMMON, RARELY DEADLY, STUDY SAYS
LEAD: About a quarter of patients who died in hospitals had some type of substandard medical care right before their deaths, though less than 1 percent of those patients were likely have survived for three months or more, said a study to appear in tomorrow's Journal of the American Medical Association.
The study defined medical errors as anything other than perfect care and it supports earlier research showing errors are common and improvement could delay some deaths. Reviews of 111 deaths at VA medical centers found no egregious mistakes, with little consensus among doctors as to what constituted errors, the findings showed.

Roanoke Times & World News
July 20, 2001 Friday Metro Edition
WEB SITE WILL GIVE DETAILS ABOUT VIRGINIA'S DOCTORS
A Web site scheduled to debut Tuesday will allow Virginians, with a few clicks of a computer mouse, to access a wealth of information about the state's 31,000 physicians, osteopaths and podiatrists.
When a doctor's name is entered, the site will return an individual profile that includes:
Education and medical training background.
Board certification, specialties, academic appointments and articles published in peer-reviewed journals.

The Virginian-Pilot (Norfolk, Va.)
July 20, 2001 Friday Final Edition
WEB SITE TO OFFER DATA ON DOCTORS
ACTIONS TAKEN AGAINST PHYSICIAN INCLUDED IN INFORMATION
A Web site scheduled to debut Tuesday will allow Virginians, with a few clicks of a computer mouse, to access a wealth of information about the state's 31,000 physicians, osteopaths and podiatrists.
When a doctor's name is entered, the site will return an individual profile that includes:
Education and medical training background.
Board certification, specialties, academic appointments and articles published in peer-reviewed journals.
Number of years in practice.

Omaha World-Herald
July 13, 2001, Friday METRO EDITION
Health System Targets Errors Increased patient safety is sought by fixing problems rather than placing blame Medical Errors
Hoping to get more doctors, nurses and staff members to fess up about mistakes, Nebraska Health System has launched a program seeking to prevent medical errors without relying on blame.
Instead of employees hiding potentially dangerous mistakes because they fear discipline, the new campaign - unveiled to staff this week - creates a nonpunitive reporting system, said Dr. Steve Smith, chief medical officer for the health system, which includes University and Clarkson Hospitals.
"In the past, if an error occurred, employees were often afraid to report it," Smith said. "Now, we want a work-place culture where we say, 'Thank you for bringing that to our attention.'"

The Virginian-Pilot (Norfolk, Va.)
July 11, 2001 Wednesday Final Edition
PATHOLOGIST MISSED CANCER, SUIT SAYS HEATHER OLIVER WAS TOLD AFTER SURGERY LAST YEAR THAT SHE DID NOT HAVE CANCER. BUT HER FAMILY'S RELIEF WAS SHORT-LIVED: A MISTAKE, THEY SAY, HAD BEEN MADE.
As they waited for the results of their daughter's first surgery last year, the Olivers braced for the worst.
But doctors emerged with good news. Heather, the Olivers' only daughter, was cancer-free.
"We were ecstatic," her mother, Dawn H. Oliver, said in an interview this week. "We went back to planning her wedding."

Chicago Daily Herald
July 3, 2001, Tuesday, Cook/DuPage/Fox Valley/Lake/McHenry
Timely effort to cut hospital errors
People admitted to hospitals for surgeries or treatment of serious illness inevitably bear their share of worries about what they're about to undergo - even assuming that all procedures go as planned and bring about the best possible results.
Some patients worry, too, about the possibility that things won't go as planned. That worry factor rose considerably two years ago, when the Institutes of Medicine issued a report estimating that each year medical errors kill 44,000 to 98,000 hospital patients. The types of errors vary widely, but prescription dosage mistakes and surgical mistakes are among the most common. The wide range of the death estimate suggests that the information on deaths attributable to medical errors is indeed imprecise and open to debate. But the numbers - even at the conservative end of the spectrum - were high enough to startle the public.
 

Daily Herald (Arlington Heights, IL)
July 3, 2001
Editorials; News; Editorial
Timely effort to cut hospital errors
People admitted to hospitals for surgeries or treatment of serious illness inevitably bear their share of worries about what they're about to undergo - even assuming that all procedures go as planned and bring about the best possible results.
Some patients worry, too, about the possibility that things won't go as planned. That worry factor rose considerably two years ago, when the Institutes of Medicine issued a report estimating that each year medical errors kill 44,000 to 98,000 hospital patients. The types of errors vary widely, but prescription dosage mistakes and surgical mistakes are among the most common. The wide range of the death estimate suggests that the information on deaths attributable to medical errors is indeed imprecise and open to debate. But the numbers - even at the conservative end of the spectrum - were high enough to startle the public.

Dayton Daily News
July 3, 2001 Tuesday CITY EDITION
HEALTH BRIEFS
* Being alerted to medical mistakes. Hospitals must tell patients when they've been victims of medical errors as of Sunday, when safety standards took effect for all accredited U.S. hospitals. The nonprofit Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, which monitors nearly 5,000 hospitals, acted partly in response to the 1999 Institute of Medicine report estimating that medical errors kill between 44,000 and 98,000 hospital patients a year. "We need to create a culture of safety in which errors are openly discussed and studied so that solutions can be found and put in place," says JCAHO president Dr. Dennis O'Leary. Honesty about mistakes even reduces the chances of lawsuits, research has found. "Part of the understandable anger that accompanies a lawsuit is that something bad happened to me and they didn't tell me," says Sidney Wolfe, co-founder of Public Citizen Health Research Group. American Hospital Association policy advises hospitals to tell patients even about harmless mistakes, but it is JCAHO that has the power of accreditation.

Legal Times
July 2, 2001
Whose Bill of Rights? Raising costs and ignoring most malpractice is protection patients can do without.
If you want an inkling of what the McCain-Kennedy-Edwards patients' bill of rights would do, consider the cases of some plaintiffs who have already found ways around the federal law shield the bill would dismantle and that now protects managed care plans from liability for most coverage decisions.
Nelene Fox of California asked her HMO, Health Net, in 1992 to pay for a costly bone marrow transplant recommended by her physician to treat her advanced breast cancer. Health Net refused, on the advice of an outside advisory panel of medical experts that marrow transplants were an unproven, experimental procedure for such breast cancers and, thus, clearly not covered by the insurance contract. (More-recent studies suggest that bone marrow transplants are of no value in treating breast cancer.)
Fox raised enough money to have the transplant anyway. She died eight months later. Her husband sued. A Riverside jury, inflamed by evidence that the Health Net executive who refused coverage could make more if he saved the company money, ordered the HMO in 1993 to pay Fox's husband and estate $212,000 for the cost of the treatment, another $12 million for "emotional distress" -- and $77 million in punitive damages for the HMO's "bad faith." (The case was later settled for a much smaller, undisclosed sum.)

The San Diego Union-Tribune
July 2, 2001, Monday
Hospitals have to tell patients about mistakes
Hospitals will be required to tell patients when they've been victims of medical errors under safety standards that took effect yesterday.
The rule is the first of its kind from the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, a nonprofit group that monitors nearly 5,000 hospitals nationwide.

Traffic World
July 2, 2001, Monday
Mistaken Identity
; e-Strategies
More people die each year as a result of medical errors in hospitals than from car accidents. Yet a technology that has been in common use for years could cut medical error rates dramatically. It's called barcoding.
Barcoding? Surely everybody's got that. Not necessarily. For example, the food service industry has been struggling for years to cajole companies to adopt a unified system of bar coding. Efficient Foodservice Response, a trade organization, has identified potential supply-chain savings of $847 million annually for barcoding products through streamlined transportation, handling and administration.

Traffic World
July 2, 2001, Monday
Mistaken Identity
; e-Strategies
More people die each year as a result of medical errors in hospitals than from car accidents. Yet a technology that has been in common use for years could cut medical error rates dramatically. It's called barcoding.
Barcoding? Surely everybody's got that. Not necessarily. For example, the food service industry has been struggling for years to cajole companies to adopt a unified system of bar coding. Efficient Foodservice Response, a trade organization, has identified potential supply-chain savings of $847 million annually for barcoding products through streamlined transportation, handling and administration.

Chicago Daily Herald
July 1, 2001, Sunday, Cook/DuPage/Fox Valley/Lake/McHenry
Hospitals ready for new tell-all rule Stipulation requires doctors, staff report medical mistakes to patients' families
Despite a new rule starting today that requires hospital employees to tell patients when they've made a mistake, suburban officials say it will be business as usual at their facilities.
"We have always been straightforward with our patients," said Ina Albert, a spokeswoman for Condell Medical Center in Libertyville. "Everything's always been above board."
Albert said the Patient Bill of Rights brochure, included in every patient folder and translated into various languages, already advises patients they can expect full disclosure.

Corpus Christi Caller-Times
July 1, 2001, Sunday
Hospitals to use robot pharmacists
Driscoll, Corpus Christi Medical Center plan to add robots to cut down on medication errors
The procedure for getting a prescription at Driscoll Children's Hospital is pretty standard. A doctor jots a prescription, which is passed to the pharmacy and interpreted by a pharmacist. A pharmacy technician gets a printout of the order, fills the prescription in a back room lined with bottles of pills and liquids. The drugs go back to the pharmacist to sign off on the order.
Another person, such as a nurse, delivers the drugs to the patient elsewhere in the hospital.

Daily Herald (Arlington Heights, IL)
July 1, 2001
Hospitals ready for new tell-all rule Stipulation requires doctors, staff report medical mistakes to patients' families; News
    Teresa Mask Daily Herald Staff Writer
Despite a new rule starting today that requires hospital employees to tell patients when they've made a mistake, suburban officials say it will be business as usual at their facilities.
"We have always been straightforward with our patients," said Ina Albert, a spokeswoman for Condell Medical Center in Libertyville. "Everything's always been above board."
Albert said the Patient Bill of Rights brochure, included in every patient folder and translated into various languages, already advises patients they can expect full disclosure.

THE ORLANDO SENTINEL
July 1, 2001 Sunday, METRO
RULES PUSH HOSPITALS TO REDUCE MISTAKES, ADMIT ERRORS;
THE STANDARDS, WHICH KICK IN TODAY, AIM TO EASE PATIENTS' CONCERNS ABOUT COVER-UPS.
Responding to a growing public outcry over medical errors, a powerful accrediting organization is demanding that hospitals inform patients when harmful mistakes are made.
Effective today, the new standards require hospitals to prove they are taking steps to reduce errors. And when mistakes do occur, they must be disclosed immediately. Hospitals that don't comply risk losing their accreditation, which could trigger federal and state regulators to cut off Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements, the lifeblood for hospitals.

Orthopaedic Nursing
July 1, 2001
Medication Errors: Ethical Implications.
The Institute of Medicine (IOM) issued a report, To Err is Human: Building a Safer Health System (Kohn et al., 2000), targeted at reducing medical errors, a major cause of injury to and death of patients in the United States. While making medical errors is not new, they are currently receiving more attention.
The IOM has noted that 3-4% of hospitalizations have some adverse event with 9-14% of those mistakes resulting in death (Kohn et al., 2000; Valenti, 2000). This translates into approximately 44,000 to 98,000 Americans who die each year as a result of medical errors. Managing these adverse events is costly. Medication errors are the second most common and the second most expensive adverse event (Valenti, 2000).
The author recently heard the following comment after the transfer of a patient from a hospital to a nursing home for rehabilitation. "Mother is in nursing [home] and so happy to be there. The hospital made so many errors it even makes the dreaded 'nursing [home]' look good!"

The Indianapolis Star
June 30, 2001 Saturday City final Edition
New standards will force hospitals to report errors
Hospitals will have to notify patients who have been harmed by medical errors under national safety standards effective Sunday.
Medical errors cause between 44,000 and 98,000 patient deaths annually, according to a 1999 study by the Institute of Medicine.

The National Journal
June 30, 2001
What a Cure! Higher Medical Costs and More Uninsured
If you want an inkling of what the McCain-Kennedy-Edwards
"patients' bill of rights" would do, consider the cases of some
plaintiffs who have already found ways around the federal law
shield-which the bill would dismantle-that now protects managed
care plans from liability for most coverage decisions.
Nelene Fox of California asked her HMO, Health Net, in
1992 to pay for a costly bone marrow transplant recommended by
her physician to treat her advanced breast cancer. Health Net
refused, on the advice of an outside advisory panel of medical
experts that marrow transplants were an unproven, experimental
procedure for such breast cancers and, thus, clearly not covered
by the insurance contract. (More-recent studies suggest that bone
marrow transplants are of no value in treating breast cancer.)
Fox raised enough money to have the transplant anyway. She died
eight months later. Her husband sued. A Riverside jury, inflamed
by evidence that the Health Net executive who refused coverage
could make more if he saved the company money, ordered the HMO in
1993 to pay Fox's husband and estate $212,000 for the cost of the
treatment, another $12 million for "emotional distress"-and $77
million in punitive damages for the HMO's "bad faith." (The case
was later settled for a much smaller, undisclosed sum.)

The Bismarck Tribune
June 29, 2001, Friday, METRO EDITION
Hospitals say new rules are no big change
Hospitals say a new rule requiring them to tell patients when a mistake has been made only reinforces current practices in the state.
Beginning Sunday, the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations will require hospitals to tell patients when they've been victims of medical errors.

The Denver Post
June 29, 2001 Friday 2D EDITION
State's hospitals must now disclose errors
Colorado's hospitals must tell patients about errors made  during treatment under new rules that take effect Sunday, but  patient advocates say the attention should be more on training and  staffing problems rather than tracking errors.
The new standard, required under the Joint Commission on  Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, forces hospitals to  track their own errors and death rates, and to make full  disclosure of errors part of their policies.
'We'll be changing our language in our policies about how a  patient handles a complaint,' said Eileen Childs, risk manager for  the Medical Center of Aurora. 'I think it's important that we      don't sweep problems under the carpet.'

Las Vegas Review-Journal (Las Vegas, NV)
June 29, 2001 Friday FINAL EDITION
New rules to reveal doctors' mistakes
By JOELLE BABULA
REVIEW-JOURNAL
New safety standards taking effect Sunday will for the first time require hospitals to tell patients when a doctor made a mistake while caring for them.
Patients who suffer because of botched surgeries, misdiagnosis, wrong medications and other mistakes must be notified immediately under the new regulations issued by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations.
The nonprofit commission -- which monitors nearly 5,000 hospitals across the country, including 14 in Las Vegas -- developed the standards in response to the Institute of Medicine's estimate that medical errors kill between 44,000 and 98,000 hospital patients each year.
'Clearly, more needs to be done to protect patients,' accreditation commission President Dr. Dennis O'Leary said. 'Most of these errors are buried inside organizations. They are not reported to us, and they are not even reported internally.'

The Charleston Gazette
June 28, 2001, Thursday
New rules require hospitals to reveal mistakes
CHICAGO - Hospitals will be required to tell patients when they've been victims of medical errors under safety standards that take effect Sunday.
The rule is the first of its kind from the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, a nonprofit group that monitors nearly 5,000 hospitals nationwide.
The commission acted partly in response to a 1999 Institute of Medicine report estimating that medical errors kill 44,000 to 98,000 hospital patients each year.

The Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN)
June 28, 2001 Thursday Final Edition
NEW RULE REQUIRES HOSPITALS TO ADMIT MISTAKES
Hospitals will be required to tell patients when they've been victims of medical errors under safety standards that take effect Sunday.
The rule is the first of its kind from the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, a nonprofit group that monitors nearly 5,000 hospitals nationwide.

PR Newswire
June 28, 2001, Thursday
Hospitals Face New JCAHO Patient Safety Standards on July 1
New patient safety standards that go into effect on July 1 will require hospitals to initiate specific efforts to prevent medical errors and to tell patients when they have been harmed during their treatment.
The new rules from the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, (JCAHO), the not-for-profit safety and quality evaluator of nearly 5,000 hospitals, represent a major milestone in the nation's continuing pursuit of improvements in patient safety.  A 1999 Institute of Medicine report estimates that medical errors kill between 44,000 and 98,000 hospital patients annually.
"Health care executive, physician, and nursing leaders must radically change their thinking about medical mistakes," says Dennis O'Leary, M.D., president, JCAHO.  "We need to create a culture of safety in hospitals and other health care organizations, in which errors are openly discussed and studied so that solutions can be found and put in place.  These new standards are intended to do just that."
The new standards underscore the importance of strong organization leadership in building a culture of safety.  Such a culture should strongly encourage the internal reporting of medical errors, and actively engage clinicians and other staff in the design of remedial steps to prevent future occurrences of these errors.  The additional emphasis on effective communication, appropriate training, and teamwork found in the standards language draw heavily upon lessons learned in both the aviation and health care industries.
A second major focus of the new standards is on the prevention of medical errors through the prospective analysis and re-design of vulnerable patient care systems (e.g. the ordering, preparation and dispensing of medications).

Sun-Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, FL)
June 28, 2001 Thursday Broward Metro Edition
CENSUS' HOMELESS COUNT DRAWS ANGER, CRITICISM
Homeless Americans were counted in the 2000 census. It is just unclear from the results how many there were.
That has angered some House Democrats and city officials from across the country. They are demanding that the Census Bureau say exactly how many homeless people it found last year, instead of grouping them into a less specific category called "other noninstitutionalized group quarters."

Telegraph Herald (Dubuque, IA)
June 28, 2001 Thursday
National Briefs

Federal Document Clearing House Congressional Testimony
June 27, 2001, Wednesday
COMMITTEE: SENATE GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
KEEPING GOVERNMENT NURSES ON THE JOB
June 27, 2001
Testimony of
Carol Anne Bragg, RN, Registered Nurse on behalf of the Service Employees International Union, AFL - CIO
Before the Senate Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, Restructuring and the District of Columbia of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee
On Nursing Shortages in Federally-funded Programs
Thank you Senator Durbin for allowing me to testify at this hearing on behalf of the Service Employees International Union on the current nursing crisis in this country.
My name is Carol Bragg. I am registered nurse (RN), a member of SEIU's Nurse Alliance and President of SElU Local 1998, the Professional Staff Nurses Association in Maryland. Today I am speaking on behalf of the 1.4 million members of SEIU, more than 71 0,000 of whom work in the health care industry, more than I I 0,000 of whom are nurses, and more than 120,000 of whom work in nursing homes. I also speak as someone who is engaged in addressing the nursing crisis on a statewide level. Last Fall I was appointed by the Governor to serve on the Commission on the Crisis in Nursing created by the Maryland General Assembly to investigate and find ways to address this urgent issue.

Indianapolis Business Journal
June 25, 2001
New health commission to make diagnosis;
Panel charged with wide-ranging review of Indiana delivery system
After 18 years on the Indiana House Public Health Committee, the last 10 as its chairman, Democrat Rep. Charlie Brown has seen first hand the patchwork that makes up health care delivery in Indiana.
So he decided to find out just how well it's working.
During the Indiana General Assembly, Brown authored and shepherded through a new law, HEA 1845, that establishes the Indiana Commission on Excellence in Health Care.
The commission created by the new law is a 13-member panel charged with studying the quality of health care in Indiana, including its mental health programs, and developing a comprehensive statewide strategy for improving the health care delivery system.

Bloomberg News
June 18, 2001, Monday 12:01 AM Eastern Time
CERNER RELEASES RECOMMENDATIONS FOR INSURING PATIENT SAFETY
LEAD: Cerner Corp. and Modern Healthcare magazine joined a group of health-care companies to release recommendations that are a potential blueprint for improving the health-care industry, said a Cerner spokesman. The Millennium Health Imperative believes the health-care industry needs universal standards to save lives and increase productivity, Cerner spokesman David Oboyski said. The group recommended computerizing medical records and having doctors enter patient information directly into handheld computers to reduce medical errors. The group said the labor shortage, coupled with a lack of spending on software and computer systems spending and reluctance by workers to take responsibility for their actions, is hurting the industry. "The health-care sector is a well-intentioned, generally well-funded industry," the report said, "but is operating in a highly uncoordinated state, characterized by often perverse incentives and, astoundingly, very little accountability."

Internet Wire
June 18, 2001 Monday
ScriptRx, Inc. Installs 180+ Systems In First 90 Days Since Announcing Free Prescription Writing Systems' Availability;
Reduces Life Threatening Medication Errors In Hospitals Nationwide
ScriptRx Inc., a national provider of interactive healthcare systems, today announced it has completed successful installation of over 180 ScriptRx systems in hospital emergency departments nationwide, reaching the major milestone in just 90 days since announcing availability of the free prescription writing systems. ScriptRx systems have been deployed in 14 states including Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Texas. Available to Emergency Departments nationwide, the ScriptRx System is a physician-friendly touchscreen computer system, incorporating a fingerprint scanner and laser printer that delivers Emergency Department physicians fast, secure, computerized prescription writing, discharge instructions, and instant access to online and database housed reference materials.

Patient Care
June 15, 2001
To err is human: How to prevent medical errors.
A recent 10M report raised awareness of the seriousness and extent of hospital-based errors. But mistakes occur in office practices, as well. Our experts give advice on how to avoid medical missteps.
The pharmacist called this morning with a query about one of the prescriptions that you wrote. He thought a decimal point was in the wrong place, and he was right. How often have similar mistakes gone unnoticed? Since the Institute of Medicine (IOM) report on medical errors was published, the media have been focusing on hospital-based mistakes because those were the subject of the report. [1] But mistakes occur in the primary care office on a daily basis, and some of them are never discovered. Does a remedy exist?
The medical-errors arena is undergoing a transformation. Experts now recommend looking not at individuals, but at systems and processes as the critical sources of most mistakes. The focus has shifted to designing office procedures so mistakes are caught before they affect patients. Because problems cannot be solved until they are identified, staffers must be enabled to move away from a punitive culture that assigns blame for mistakes. Individual employees must be relatively free to report errors--and near misses--without fear of reprisal. Some institutions go so far as to send thank-you letters to employees who report mistakes.

Investor's Business Daily
June 11, 2001
MEDICAL TECHNOLOGY Sunquest System Aims To Reduce Medical Errors
Investor's Business Daily Medical errors kill tens of thousands of people a year. Many die from drug reactions, although lab results foretell the medication problems. Despite best efforts, lab tests sometimes are overlooked or misfiled. But what if hospitals had an automatic warning system? Could that help curb errors? Yes, says Dr. Sidney Goldblatt, chief executive at Sunquest Information Systems Inc. in Tucson, Ariz. "That's the focus we took." Sunquest makes clinical data management products. One of them alerts hospital workers to patient problems via pager and e-mail. Doctors who use it "realize it makes them better physicians," Goldblatt said. The medical community is starting to take note, for two reasons. An automatic warning system could help save lives, and in doing so could save money. The Institute of Medicine says errors may cause 44,000 to 98,000 hospital deaths a year. The cost of errors? Nearly $ 38 billion. And $ 17 billion of that is for preventable problems. "The watchword in the entire health care industry is cost control," said Jack Plunkett, chief executive of market analysis firm Plunkett Research Ltd. in Houston. "Something like Sunquest has potential to cut costs." Focus On Urgent Problems The system speeds the flow of data around a hospital, promoting efficiency. It also helps workers focus on the most urgent problems. Community Hospitals of Indianapolis cut costs equal to a pharmacist's salary by using Sunquest's Clinical Event Manager system. It reads data from other hospital information systems, such radiology, the lab and the pharmacy.

The Deseret News (Salt Lake City, UT)
June 7, 2001, Thursday
SECTION: LOCAL; Pg. B01
New rules target medical mistakes
While praising the American health-care system as the "most technically advanced," Utah health officials lament "unacceptably high levels of adverse events due to medical errors."
Wednesday, the Department of Health released preliminary data on medical errors at 40 acute-care hospitals in Utah and unveiled new rules designed to reduce them. One requires health facilities to report serious patient injuries and allow an independent review of that facility's investigation and response. The other mandates reporting of adverse drug events, which account for about half of medical errors.

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
June 5, 2001 Tuesday SOONER EDITION
BAD MEDICINE?;
CONSUMERS: MEDICAL COMMUNITY SHOULDN'T DICTATE OUR RIGHT TO SUE
Each year, 44,000 to 98,000 Americans die as a result of medical errors, according to an Institute of Medicine report issued in 1999. More people die from medical errors than from motor vehicle accidents, breast cancer and AIDS.
These errors aren't just devastating to victims; national costs are estimated at between $17 billion and $29 billion.

Los Angeles Times
June 4, 2001 Monday  Home Edition
Monitor / DOCTORS;
Few HMOs Report Disciplinary Actions Filed Against Doctors
Federal law requires health maintenance organizations to report disciplinary actions taken against doctors and dentists for incompetence or misconduct. But few appear to be doing so.

BROWARD DAILY BUSINESS REVIEW
June 1, 2001 Friday
A cure for poor handwriting
Physician gave up practice after creating software that eases paperwork burden, reduces medical-record risks
Julia Maganini
Dr. Angel Garcia believes he has found a better way to prepare all the rigorous paperwork required when treating a patient.
Ten years ago, Cuban-born Garcia, after having taken a few computer courses, set out to create an electronic template to ease paperwork at his office.
"I was spending 40 hours a week seeing patients and another 10 to 12 hours a week doing paperwork," says Garcia, now 48, and a medical school graduate of Wayne State University in Detroit. "Most of it was handwriting and dictation, and 80 percent of it was repetitive."

MedSurg Nursing
June 1, 2001
Iatrogenic Illness: A Primer for Nurses.
Iatrogenic illness is a term that is used frequently but not clearly understood. This overview of diseases incurred as a consequence of medical treatment explores evolving definitions and the epidemiology of these problems. In addition, a number of strategies to reduce the incidence of these illnesses and the implications of this problem for nurses are presented.
Iatrogenic illness (II) is a familiar term that most nurses have difficulty defining with precision. Because its meaning has evolved appreciably over time and is still somewhat vague, understanding the evolution, epidemiology, and effects of II is a significant priority for nurses. This is especially true given recent nationwide publicity about nursing errors and their negative consequences for patients and families.

MIAMI DAILY BUSINESS REVIEW
June 1, 2001 Friday
A cure for poor handwriting
Physician gave up practice after creating software that eases paperwork burden, reduces medical-record risks
Julia Maganini
Dr. Angel Garcia believes he has found a better way to prepare all the rigorous paperwork required when treating a patient.
Ten years ago, Cuban-born Garcia, after having taken a few computer courses, set out to create an electronic template to ease paperwork at his office.
"I was spending 40 hours a week seeing patients and another 10 to 12 hours a week doing paperwork," says Garcia, now 48, and a medical school graduate of Wayne State University in Detroit. "Most of it was handwriting and dictation, and 80 percent of it was repetitive."

Packaging Digest
June 1, 2001
Packaging as antidote to medication errors; Brief Article
You don't have to tell packaging professionals that their products can serve a variety of useful functions. Sometimes you have to tell customers, and too often you have to tell legislators. The average packaging professional, though, is well versed in the litany of useful chores of the typical retail package: communication, protection, safety, marketing, and so on.
Add to the list the prevention of medical errors. A sometimes deadly and undeniably costly reality, medication errors are being attacked by industry and government in a range of ways, with packaging structural design and labeling leading the charge.

PALM BEACH DAILY BUSINESS REVIEW
June 1, 2001 Friday
A cure for poor handwriting
Physician gave up practice after creating software that eases paperwork burden, reduces medical-record risks
Julia Maganini
Dr. Angel Garcia believes he has found a better way to prepare all the rigorous paperwork required when treating a patient.
Ten years ago, Cuban-born Garcia, after having taken a few computer courses, set out to create an electronic template to ease paperwork at his office.
"I was spending 40 hours a week seeing patients and another 10 to 12 hours a week doing paperwork," says Garcia, now 48, and a medical school graduate of Wayne State University in Detroit. "Most of it was handwriting and dictation, and 80 percent of it was repetitive."

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
June 1, 2001 Friday SOONER EDITION
SENATE LEADERS EYE NATIONAL DATABASE ON MEDICAL ERRORS
Meetings with Pittsburgh health-care officials yesterday will help Senate leaders craft legislation to help eliminate the estimated 44,000 to 98,000 deaths that stem from medical errors in U.S. hospitals each year.
The bipartisan legislation, which would be introduced by Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., and Sen. Bill Frist, R-Tenn., would develop a national database to which health-care professionals could report medical errors. By collecting
 information, the database could help hospitals identify common problems and point them toward solutions. 134 of 235

Federal News Service
May 24, 2001, Thursday
PREPARED STATEMENT OF TOMMY G. THOMPSON SECRETARY, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
BEFORE THE SENATE COMMITTEE ON HEALTH, EDUCATION, LABOR AND PENSIONS
Good morning, Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee. I am honored to appear before you today to discuss the important issue of reducing medical errors and improving the safety of the health care services that Americans receive.
I would like to commend you, Mr. Chairman, and your colleagues for the role that you have played in helping to focus attention on this issue and for your commitment to finding solutions to what is by any estimate one of the leading public health challenges that we face today. Your leadership in this area has constituted a vital service to the Nation and will be critical as we move forward in this endeavor.
For the most part, the findings described in the Institute of Medicine's (IOM) landmark November 1999 report, To Err is Human: Building a Safer Health System, are no longer front-page news. But the findings are no less serious, and they present no less of a challenge for all of us who care deeply about the quality of our Nation's health care system and the lives of the people who are affected when mistakes occur.

Federal Document Clearing House Congressional Testimony
May 24, 2001, Thursday
COMMITTEE: SENATE HEALTH, EDUCATION, LABOR & PENSIONS
TESTIMONY PATIENT SAFETY
MAY 24,2001 STATEMENT BEFORE THE SENATE HEALTH, EDUCATION, LABOR, AND PENSIONS COMMITTEE TOMMY G. THOMPSON SECRETARY DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES Good morning, Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee. I am honored to appear before you today to discuss the important issue of reducing medical errors and improving the safety of the health care services that Americans receive. I would like to commend you, Mr. Chairman, and your colleagues for the role that you have played in helping to focus attention on this issue and for your commitment to finding solutions to what is by any estimate one of the leading public health challenges that we face today. Your leadership in this area has constituted a vital service to the Nation and will be critical as we move forward in this endeavor. For the most part, the findings described in the Institute of Medicine's (10M) landmark November 1999 report, To Err is Human: Building a Safer Health System, are no longer front-page news. But the findings are no less serious, and they present no less of a challenge for all of us who care deeply about the quality of our Nation's health care system and the lives of the people who are affected when mistakes occur. Another report released by the IOM in March 2001, Crossing the Quality Chasm: A New Health System for the 21st Century, has served as a reminder of what the 1999 errors report made clear.

Wisconsin State Journal
May 24, 2001 Thursday, FIRST Edition
SURVEY: MEDICAL ERRORS CAN BE AVOIDED;
HOSPITALS URGED TO ADOPT MEASURES SUCH AS COMPUTERIZED PRESCRIPTION DRUG ORDERING.
More than 850 Wisconsin lives could be saved if hospitals in the state made sure doctors were available 24 hours a day in intensive care units and referred patients to specialized hospitals for surgeries, a new coalition of Wisconsin businesses reported Wednesday.
In addition, the study, done for the Wisconsin Business Coalition on Health, said almost 11,000 medication errors a year in state hospitals could be avoided with computerized prescription drug ordering.
"Businesses intend to educate employees as to which hospitals have adopted these life-saving measures," said Jerry Popowski Fond du Lac coalition leader and president.

The Dallas Morning News
May 21, 2001, Monday THIRD EDITION
Medical Students;
Resident hours need to be rational
Some consider it a rite of passage - the medical resident working in a hospital around the clock for days on end. It may improve stamina, but it certainly can't be good for the health of residents or hospital patients.

The Augusta Chronicle
May 15, 2001 Tuesday, ALL EDITIONS
PARENTS SHOULD BE VIGILANT DISPENSING CHILD MEDICATIONS
"Take your medicine!" Parents encourage sick children to swallow nasty-tasting stuff in the belief that it will make them better.
Most of the time, that's true. But children are especially vulnerable to medication mistakes and serious side effects. Their size makes dosing more complicated and more critical.

THE SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
May 09, 2001, Wednesday , FINAL
SURVEY OF DOCTORS UNDERSCORES MISTAKES 95% SAY THEY HAVE SEEN SERIOUS ERRORS; 20% RATE SYSTEM LOW

In a sign of increasing concerns about the safety of U.S. health care, 95 percent of doctors in a survey say they have witnessed serious medical errors.
The doctors, along with a sampling of nurses and executives, gave the nation's medical care mediocre ratings overall, with just 42 percent saying the system is "very good" or "excellent."
One in five rated it poor to fair.

The San Diego Union-Tribune
May 9, 2001, Wednesday
Care providers tell of serious medical errors; 90% report seeing mistakes firsthand
WASHINGTON -- More than 90 percent of health-care providers surveyed say they have witnessed serious medical errors, according to a new study released yesterday.
The survey, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, found that significant numbers of the providers -- 95 percent of 600 physicians, 89 percent of 400 nurses and 81 percent of 200 senior hospital executives -- have seen such errors firsthand.
The study defined medical error as "the failure to carry out a task in medicine the way we intended it -- giving the wrong drug or doing the surgery in a way we didn't plan," according to Dr. Donald Berwick, co-chairman of the foundation's grant program.

The Times Union (Albany, NY)
May 9, 2001, Wednesday, THREE STAR EDITION
Serious errors seen in health care
WASHINGTON -- More than 90 percent of health care providers surveyed say they have witnessed serious medical errors, according to a new study released Tuesday.
The survey, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, found that significant numbers of the providers -- 95 percent of 600 physicians, 89 percent of 400 nurses and 81 percent of 200 senior hospital executives -- have seen such errors firsthand.

Federal News Service
May 3, 2001, Thursday
PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR LARRY CRAIG
BEFORE THE SENATE COMMITTEE ON AGING TECHNOLOGY AND PRESCRIPTION DRUG SAFETY
Good Afternoon. Thank you all for joining us here today at the Special Committee on Aging as we examine the critical issue of Technology and Prescription Drug Safety.
It is alarming to find that every year between 44,000 and 98,000 people are injured or die due to medical errors. In fact, just last month, the American Pharmaceutical Association estimated that medication misuse cost the economy over $177 billion per year.

Federal News Service
May 3, 2001, Thursday
PREPARED STATEMENT OF MARTY R. MCKAY, RPH CHIEF PHARMACIST, PEARSON DRUGS AND PEARSON MEDICAL TECHNOLOGIES, LLC
BEFORE THE SENATE COMMITTEE ON AGING
Thank you very much for this opportunity to speak with you today. I would like to discuss the tremendous opportunity we have today for using technology to prevent medication errors and save lives, how the pharmacist should play a critical role in implementing that technology in our health care system, and how federal legislation and regulation can enable the development of that technology and not restrict it.
In addition to being a member of the Louisiana State Board of Pharmacy and the current President of the Louisiana Pharmacists Association, I have been a practicing pharmacist for over 26 years. I have also been involved over the last 15 years in research on using technology to prevent medication errors and enhance patient safety, especially in the nursing home setting. As a practicing pharmacist, primarily in the retail and nursing home areas, I see the deficiencies and dangers of current medication delivery systems on a daily basis. But I also see the opportunities that technology holds for preventing a large percentage of these errors. Medication error is a huge problem in the United States today, causing patient deaths and injury and costing the United States billions of dollars each year.

Federal News Service
May 3, 2001, Thursday
PREPARED STATEMENT OF JANET M. CORRIGAN, PH.D. DIRECTOR, BOARD ON HEALTH CARE SERVICES INSTITUTE OF MEDICINE THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES
BEFORE THE SENATE COMMITTEE ON AGING
SUBJECT - PATIENT SAFETY AND MEDICATION ERRORS
Good morning, Mr. Chairman and Senator Breaux, and members of the Committee. My name is Janet Corrigan. I am the Director of the Institute of Medicine's Board on Health Care Services, which is responsible for IOM work in the areas of health care delivery, financing, benefits coverage, access and quality of care. For the last three years I have also directed the IOM's Quality of Health Care in America Project, and I am here today representing the IOM Committee which in late 1999 released the report To Err is Human: Building a Safer Health System, and most recently, the report Crossing the Quality Chasm: A New Health System for the 21" Century.
In its first report, the IOM Committee on the Quality of Health Care in America concluded that as many as 44,000 to 98,000 people die in a given year as a result of medical errors, more than the number who die from motor vehicle accidents (43,458), breast cancer (42,297), or AIDS (16,516). These numbers reflect only patients who died in hospitals, and only deaths for which there was adequate documentation in the medical record to concur that the death was attributable to error.

Federal Document Clearing House Congressional Testimony
May 3, 2001, Thursday
COMMITTEE: SENATE special aging
TESTIMONY TECHNOLOGY AND PRESCRIPTION DRUG SAFETY
May 3, 2001 Statement of Senator Larry Craig Senate Special Committee on Aging Technology and Prescription Drug Safety Good Afternoon. Thank you all for joining us here today at the Special Committee on Aging as we examine the critical issue of Technology and Prescription Drug Safety. It is alarming to find that every year between 44,000 and 98,000 people are injured or die due to medical errors. In fact, just last month, the American Pharmaceutical Association estimated that medication misuse cost the economy over $177 billion per year. As Chairman of the Special Committee on Aging, this issue is of particular concern to me. Senior citizens often must rely on multiple medications to control the many conditions associated with aging, conditions like high blood pressure, diabetes and arthritis. Each time a patient takes medication they risk an adverse drug event. Since seniors take several different kinds of medications each day, they face the additional risk of experiencing a drug to drug interaction. Therefore, it is imperative for us to identify and develop new strategies to reduce medication errors. The private sector has been working hard to resolve the dangerous problems associated with prescribing and dispensing errors, and I commend them for their innovative ideas. As Congress considers legislation to add a prescription drug benefit to the Medicare program, it is important to examine the medical technology available to reduce medication errors. The first panel includes Dr. Janet Corrigan, the Director of the Board on Health Care Services at the Institute of Medicine, Dr. Harold H. Allen, Jr., MD an orthopedic surgeon and founder of Picos and Peter Klein the Vice President of En-Vision America, Neil Reed, the director of pharmacy at the Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center in Idaho Falls, Idaho.

Federal Document Clearing House Congressional Testimony
May 3, 2001, Thursday
COMMITTEE: SENATE special aging
TESTIMONY TECHNOLOGY AND PRESCRIPTION DRUG SAFETY
May 3, 2001 Senate Special Committee on Aging Written Testimony Submitted by Marty R. McKay RPh Partner/Manager Pearson Drugs, LeCompte, LA President, Louisiana Pharmacist Association Member, Louisiana Board of Pharmacy Chief Pharmacist, Pearson Medical Technologies, LLC Senate Special Committee on Aging Hearing Chief Pharmacist, Pearson Drugs and Pearson Medical Technologies, LLC Thank you very much for this opportunity to speak with you today. I would like to discuss the tremendous opportunity we have today for using technology to prevent medication errors and save lives, how the pharmacist should play a critical role in implementing that technology in our health care system, and how federal legislation and regulation can enable the development of that technology and not restrict it. In addition to being a member of the Louisiana State Board of Pharmacy and the current President of the Louisiana Pharmacists Association, I have been a practicing pharmacist for over 26 years. I have also been involved over the last 15 years in research on using technology to prevent medication errors and enhance patient safety, especially in the nursing home setting. As a practicing pharmacist, primarily in the retail and nursing home areas, I see the deficiencies and dangers of current medication delivery systems on a daily basis. But I also see the opportunities that technology holds for preventing a large percentage of these errors. Medication error is a huge problem in the United States today, causing patient deaths and injury and costin2 the United States billions of dollars each year.

Federal Document Clearing House Congressional Testimony
May 3, 2001, Thursday
COMMITTEE: SENATE special aging
TESTIMONY TECHNOLOGY AND PRESCRIPTION DRUG SAFETY
May 3, 2001 Statement of Janet-M,-Corrigan, Ph.D. Director Board Health Care Services Institute4 Medicine The National Academies Concerning Patient Safety and Medication Errors Before the Senate Special Committee on Aging Good morning, Mr. Chairman and Senator Breaux, and members of the Committee. My name is Janet Corrigan. I am the Director of the Institute of Medicine's Board on Health Care Services, which is responsible for IOM work in the areas of health care delivery, financing, benefits coverage, access and quality of care. For the last three years I have also directed the IOM's Quality of Health Care in America Project, and I am here today representing the IOM Committee which in late 1999 released the report To Err is Human: Building a Safer Health System, and most recently, the report Crossing the Quality Chasm: A New Health System for the 21" Century. In its first report, the IOM Committee on the Quality of Health Care in America concluded that as many as 44,000 to 98,000 people die in a given year as a result of medical errors, more than the number who die from motor vehicle accidents (43,458), breast cancer (42,297), or AIDS (16,516). These numbers reflect only patients who died in hospitals, and only deaths for which there was adequate documentation in the medical record to concur that the death was attributable to error. Medication errors are one of the most common types of errors. The Harvard Medical Practice Study, a study of more than 30,000 discharges from 51 hospitals in New York State, found that adverse events, manifest by prolonged hospitalization or disability at the time of discharge or both, occurred in 3.7 percent of hospitalizations, and about one-half of these adverse events were judged to have been preventable! Drug complications were the most common type of adverse event (19 percent), followed by wound infections (14 percent) and technical complications (13 percent).

Journal of Healthcare Management
May 1, 2001
Quality Pays: A Case for Improving Clinical Care and Reducing Medical Errors.
Shock waves are still rippling across the healthcare industry since the Institute of Medicine released its report, "To Err is Human: Building a Safer Health System," in November 1999. The report estimated that between 44,000 to 98,000 patients in U.S. hospitals die each year due to "medical errors." The report was a devastating critique of American medicine, exposing a pattern of miscommunication and medical blunders even in hospitals whose care was thought to be the "gold standard of the world" (Kohn, Corrigan, and Donaldson 1999). In addition, the Institute of Medicine estimates that the cost of nonfatal medical errors is between $ 17 to $ 19 billion each year (Rovner 2000), and that between 2.9 and 3.7 percent of all hospital admissions result in an injury from medical mismanagement (Benjamin 2000).
Calls for government action are coming at the federal and state levels. At the federal level, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) is taking the lead in developing technology for medical-errors reporting. Healthcare industry observers believe that mandatory reporting for Medicare hospitals is very likely in the next two to three years (Coile 2001). States may not wait for Washington on this issue and may enact errors-reduction programs at the state level.

The Palm Beach Post
May 1, 2001 Tuesday FINAL EDITION
EACH WEEK BRINGS DRUG MISHAP, SAY 8% OF NURSES IN U.S. SURVEY
Just over a third of nurses in a new national poll said patients in their hospital units missed medications or had them delivered late at least once a week.
Potentially more serious, 8 percent of the nurses in the soon-to-be-released survey said patients were given the wrong dosage or the wrong medication each week.
The findings come in the wake of an incident in Washington, D.C., where a Children's Hospital nurse accidentally gave a 9-month-old girl a dose of morphine that was 10 times the prescribed amount. The child, whose identity was not disclosed, died.

Cox News Service
April 30, 2001
NURSES SAY UNDERSTAFFING LEADS TO MEDICAL ERRORS
Just over a third of nurses in a new survey said patients in their hospital units missed medications or had them delivered late at least once a week.
Potentially more serious, 8 percent of the nurses said patients were given the wrong dosage or the wrong medication each week.
The finding comes in the wake of an incident in Washington, D.C., where a Children's Hospital nurse accidentally gave a 9-month-old girl a dose of morphine that was 10 times the prescribed amount. The child, whose identity was not disclosed, died.

Newsday (New York, NY)
April 25, 2001 Wednesday ALL EDITIONS
Medication Mistakes More Likely in Kids;
Researchers call for computerized prescribing
Children are three times more likely to fall victim to medication errors in hospitals than are adults, according to a new study, which also finds that computerized prescribing systems can eliminate more than 90 percent of potentially fatal mistakes.
The study is the largest ever undertaken involving medication mistakes in pediatric hospital settings and is reported by a team of Boston researchers in today's Journal of the American Medical Association.
"In general, pediatric studies tend to lag behind adult studies. And in this area, there aren't even that many adult studies," said Dr. Rainu Kaushal, referring to analyses of in-hospital drug mistakes.

The Washington Times
April 22, 2001, Sunday, Final Edition
SECTION: PART B; COMMENTARY; Pg. B4
Scary rise in Rx mistakes
Public confidence in our health-care system was rocked two years ago by the Institute of Medicine's startling report that medical errors in hospitals result in 44,000, and possibly as many as 98,000, deaths each year. That makes medical error a bigger killer than motor vehicle accidents, breast cancer or AIDS. Recent data on prescription drug errors warn that your community pharmacy can also be hazardous to your health. Prescription errors are leading causes of hospital admissions and result in more than 7,000 deaths each year.
Heddi Fischer, a retired pharmacist, was suspicious of the unfamiliar tablet when she picked up her prescription for the hormone Premarin. The pharmacist mistakenly gave her Procardia, a heart medication. A knowledgeable consumer caught this dangerous error. But what about the rest of us who count on our doctors and pharmacists to care for our health, not harm it?

Knoxville News-Sentinel (Knoxville, TN)
April 20, 2001, Friday
Companies play role in better health care
Preventable medical errors account for more than 50,000 lives lost yearly, says Suzanne Delbanco. And she thinks it's up to the people who pay for health care to save those lives.
Delbanco, executive director of the Leapfrog Group, spoke to about 150 purchasers and providers of medical care at HealthCare 21 Coalition's fourth annual Health Care forum, "Keys to Value-Based Purchasing," Thursday at the Radisson Summit Hill.

Scripps Howard News Service
April 19, 2001, Thursday
Frightening rise in prescription errors
Public confidence in our healthcare system was rocked two years ago by the Institute of Medicine's startling report that medical errors in hospitals result in 44,000, and possibly as many as 98,000, deaths each year. That makes medical error a bigger killer than motor vehicle accidents, breast cancer or AIDS. Recent data on prescription drug errors warn that your community pharmacy can also be hazardous to your health. Prescription errors are leading causes of hospital admissions and result in more than seven thousand deaths each year.
Heddi Fischer, a retired pharmacist, was suspicious of the unfamiliar tablet when she picked up her prescription for the hormone Premarin. The pharmacist mistakenly gave her Procardia, a heart medication. A knowledgeable consumer caught this dangerous error. But what about the rest of us who count on our doctors and pharmacists to care for our health, not harm it?

The San Diego Union-Tribune
April 11, 2001, Wednesday
A digital diagnosis; Scripps Health linking hospitals to patient-file computer
Dr. Paul V.B. Hyde was at home in La Jolla, catching up on some work, when a colleague called one recent evening.
The colleague's son was in the emergency room at Scripps Memorial Hospital La Jolla with a suspected case of appendicitis. A CAT scan was not definitive, however, and the colleague needed Hyde's opinion.
So Hyde, chief of surgery at the hospital, logged on to his home computer, pulled up the image and made his diagnosis on the spot.

Copley News Service
April 10, 2001, Tuesday
A digital diagnosis Scripps linking hospitals to patient-file computer
Dr. Paul V.B. Hyde was at home catching up on some work, when a colleague called one recent evening.
The colleague's son was in the emergency room at with a suspected case of appendicitis. A CAT scan was not definitive, however, and the colleague needed Hyde's opinion.
So Hyde, chief of surgery at the hospital, logged on to his home computer, pulled up the image and made his diagnosis on the spot.

HealthFacts
April 1, 2001
EFFORTS TO REDUCE MEDICATION ERRORS: HOW GOOD ARE THEY?
It has been sixteen months since the Institute of Medicine's (IOM) Committee on the Quality of Health Care in America published To Err is Human, its attention-grabbing report on medical errors. The IOM estimated that between 44,000 and 98,000 Americans die each year because of preventable errors in the nation's hospitals. The most frequent cause of harm are the errors that occur in the prescribing, dispensing or administering of medications.
As a result of the IOM report, there has been a lot of interest on the part of hospitals in using computerized safety systems that can substantially reduce medication errors due to common causes, such as illegible handwriting and similar-sounding drug names. Links to drug information can guide physicians to the best choice of drug and dosage. The automated systems can refuse to allow a prescription to be filled unless critical information is entered. For example a prescription for penicillin would not be filled unless the physician entered information indicating the patient has no history of penicillin allergy.

The New York Times
April 1, 2001, Sunday, Late Edition - Final
So, the Tumor Is on the Left, Right?;
Seeking Ways to Reduce Operating Room Errors
In the last year alone, two doctors in New York State were accused of operating on the wrong side of a patient's brain. A third was found guilty of performing surgery on the wrong section of a spinal cord; another lost his license for, among other things, removing the left kidney of a 79-year-old man who had a cancerous mass in his right kidney, and still another performed surgery on a healthy knee, rather than an injured one -- the second such blunder for that doctor in five years.
And those were just the incidents that became public.

Risk & Insurance
April 1, 2001
The Real Cost of Medical Mistakes.
Mistakes by health care providers have a tremendous impact on insurance premiums, absentee rates, and workers' comp costs. With one-third of all premium dollars wasted paying for medical errors, employers are joining forces.
Doctors operating on the wrong leg and even the wrong side of the brain. Patients contracting infections after surgery. Nurses or pharmacists dispensing the wrong medication or the wrong dosage of medication. These and other medical mistakes cost lives. They also cost money, and not just to patients.
Employers also share the cost of these errors in the form of higher premiums. In fact, a study by the National Business Coalition on Health and the Midwest Business Group on Health shows that $ 140 billion of all premium dollars are wasted on medical errors.

RN
April 1, 2001
New regulations focus on MEDICAL ERRORS.
Since the Institute of Medicine (IOM) reported that medical errors are the eighth leading cause of death and injury in the United States, [1] the pressure on healthcare providers, organizations, and federal and state legislatures to craft solutions has intensified. Approximately one year after that report appeared, new legislation and accreditation standards that address the problems raised in the IOM report have been enacted.
How will these changes affect the way healthcare organizations approach the prevention and reporting of medical errors? In this article, I'll brief you on several legal and regulatory developments that are bound to shape your facility's policy on medical errors, and I will highlight three trends you should anticipate. (A related article on page 46 describes how automated prescribing systems tap the power of computers to help reduce drug errors.)
Nursing errors have also come under fire
Although the validity of the IOM's estimates has been debated, [2'3] there's no doubt that medical errors are a significant problem that deserve the attention of providers, the healthcare industry at large, the government, and the public (see box on page 72). In recent polls, consumers report that they have personally experienced, and fear, medical errors.

Sun-Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, FL)
March 31, 2001, Saturday, Broward Metro EDITION
MAKE PATIENTS A PRIORITY, HOSPITAL CHIEFS TOLD
Staying in a hospital can be as risky as bungee jumping or mountain climbing, the author of a landmark study on medical safety told South Florida hospital officials on Friday.
Speaking at a conference in Coral Gables, Dr. Lucian Leape, of the Harvard School of Public Health, urged South Florida hospital managers to make patient safety their No. 1 priority, incorporating it into their mission statements, annual goals and performance evaluations.
Leape authored the controversial Harvard Medical Practice Study, which extrapolated that 98,000 people per year die in the United States because of medical mistakes. The figure made headlines after it was incorporated into the Institute of Medicine report, "To Err is Human: Building a Safer Health System," in late 1999.

The Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN)
March 29, 2001, THURSDAY, FINAL EDITION
PATIENTS CAN PREVENT DOCTOR ERRORS, OFFICIAL SAYS
A federal official who helps direct national efforts to reduce medical errors was in Memphis on Wednesday with some advice for patients:
Start asking questions.
Know what medications you take. If you are hospitalized, bring the list.

The New York Times
March 27, 2001, Tuesday, Late Edition - Final
MEDICAL RETREADS: A special report.;
Doctors Punished by State But Prized at the Hospitals
One doctor performed an unneeded hysterectomy on an ailing patient without giving her a routine checkup; she had a problem with her lungs. New York State proclaimed another doctor an imminent danger after he botched baby deliveries. A third doctor cleared patients for surgery without examining them.
These doctors have three things in common: all practiced medicine at a New York City hospital; all were disciplined by the state for negligence; and then all easily found work again. Two of them are still treating patients today.

The Industry Standard.com
March 26, 2001, Monday
A Hospital for the Digital Age
HealthSouth, a Birmingham, Ala.-based company that runs rehabilitation centers and hospitals across the country, announced Monday that it will build a digitally integrated hospital using technology designed by Oracle - a hospital for the third millennium.
Twelve stories tall with three "rapid transport" elevators, the facility will include centralized electronic storage for medical records, screens by patients' beds that physicians can use to access the Internet, and a wireless network for medical personnel to update patient information.
HealthSouth plans to invest up to $125 million in the new hospital, which it will build from scratch in Birmingham. But because the hospital will replace an existing one nearby, sale of that land and some equipment will reduce net spending to no more than $50 million, according to HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy.

The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer
March 26, 2001, Monday Transcript #6991
Balkan Troubles;
Medical Mistakes;
New Beginnings;
Conversation
MARGARET WARNER: Good evening. I'm Margaret Warner. Jim Lehrer is off today. On the NewsHour tonight, we examine the latest flash point in the Balkans; health correspondent Susan Dentzer reports on a link between medical mistakes and airplane crashes; Ray Suarez explores a new wrinkle in the search for our human ancestors; and Terence Smith talks to the author of a book about a doomed Caribbean cruise ship. It all follows our summary of the news this Monday.

Daily News (New York)
March 19, 2001, Monday SPORTS FINAL EDITION
EVERYONE'S NIGHTMARE Medical errors result in tens of thousands of dea ths each year. Worse, they're on the rise
The news sent shivers down the collective spine of New Yorkers: Rushed to a Brooklyn hospital three weeks ago with seizures, a man woke up to find doctors had accidentally operated on the wrong side of his brain. ..."This is what everybody fears, that you go to the hospital and they operate on the wrong side of you," said Michael Gaffney, the lawyer for the patient, Kevin Walsh, a 41-year-old construction worker from Staten Island.
"He can walk. He can talk," Gaffney said last week. "But he has a disfiguring scar, and he needs a neurological workup to evaluate the extent of the damage."
Too often, America's medical care is calling in sick. Because humans are mortal and make mistakes, each of us is at risk as a patient.

Federal Document Clearing House Congressional Testimony
March 15, 2001, Thursday
COMMITTEE: HOUSE ENERGY AND COMMERCE
TESTIMONY FEDERAL AND STATE ROLES IN MANAGED CARE
March 15, 2001 The House Committee On Energy and Commerce W.J. Billy Tauzin, Chairman Subcommittee on Health Hearing A Smarter Health Care Partnership for American Families: Making Federal and State Roles in Managed Care Regulation and Liability Work for Accountable and Affordable Health Care Coverage Mr. Stephen J. deMontmollin Vice President, General Counsel AvMed Health Plan Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee, my name is Steve deMontmollin, and I am Vice President and General Counsel of AvMed Health Plan. Based in Gainesville, Florida, AvMed is Florida s oldest and largest not-for-profit HMO, serving some 300,000 members, including approximately 30,000 Medicare members, throughout the state. AvMed contracts with close to 7,000 physicians and 126 hospitals, is federally qualified under the terms of the federal HMO Act, and is privately accredited by the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) and the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations. Today I am testifying on behalf of the American Association of Health Plans (AAHP), which represents approximately 1,000 HMOs, PPOs, and similar network plans providing coverage to over 140 million Americans. AAHP member plans are dedicated to a philosophy of care that puts patients first by promoting coordinated, comprehensive health care. I appreciate the opportunity to participate in today's hearing and to express the views of AAHP on the issue of expanding health plan liability and its potential impact on the quality and cost of health insurance in the United States. My comments today will focus on three general areas: I. The significant negative impact health plan liability expansion will have on quality of care; II.

Canadian Business and Current Affairs
Medical Post
March 13, 2001
Error-free initiative begun
QUEBEC-Quebec will appoint a team of experts to advise regional health
boards, hospitals and health professionals how to avoid medical accidents,
Health Minister Pauline Marois has announced.
The team also will advise the directorate of medical and university affairs
on how to implement changes and gather reliable statistics on the number
of accidents and cost of such accidents.
The move follows publication last week of the government committee report
into managing medical errors. The committee was set up by Marois last
April and spent the best part of a year investigating the incidence of
medical accidents in the province.

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
March 11, 2001, Sunday, TWO STAR EDITION
A SYSTEM TO CURE MEDICAL ERRORS;
KEN SEGEL AND JON LLOYD DESCRIBE A PITTSBURGH-BASED EFFORT TO IMPROVE HEALTH;
CARE THAT COULD BE A MODEL FOR THE NATION
One of the more startling news stories to emerge in the last months of 1999 came out of the National Academy of Science's Institute of Medicine. Its report, "To Err Is Human," announced research showing that medical errors in hospitals killed somewhere between 44,000 and 98,000 people a year -- the equivalent of three 747 jumbo jets filled with patients crashing every two days. Medical errors kill more people than AIDS, breast cancer or even highway accidents. The report also revealed that medication errors reach more than 1 of every 100 hospital patients, and 7 percent of inpatients contract a hospital-acquired infection.
No physician or nurse gets up in the morning and says, "I'm going to provide substandard care today." Health care providers are among the most well trained and highly motivated work forces in any industry. What is happening here?

Medical Industry Today
March 5, 2001, Monday
US Healthcare System Needs Major Overhaul, Institute Says
Saying that the nation's healthcare system has failed to consistently provide high-quality treatment to all Americans, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the National Academies last week called for a complete redesign of healthcare delivery and reimbursement.
Physicians, healthcare organizations and insurers should focus on improving care for common and chronic conditions, such as heart disease, diabetes and asthma, according to the report. The various groups now work independently but need to come together to coordinate efforts, it said.
America's healthcare system is a tangled highly fragmented web that often wastes resources by providing unnecessary services and duplicated efforts or by leaving gaps in care, the institute said.

Chattanooga Times / Chattanooga Free Press
March 2, 2001, Friday
Report cites U.S. faults in health care system
WASHINGTON -- U.S. scientists have developed highly effective treatments for many diseases but too many Americans get inadequate, outdated or even unsafe therapy instead because the nation's health care system is a tangled maze, the Institute of Medicine said in a scathing report Thursday.
It recommends an urgent overhaul to bring 21st-century care to more patients, and urges Congress to set aside $1 billion over the next three to five years to spur programs that help.
Key to improvement is getting more doctors to follow scientific evidence and making the health care system respond more quickly to patients' needs -- even if they are sick at 2 a.m. or on the weekend.
Today, too many patients go from doctor to doctor in search of one who will not make them wait months for a basic

REPORT: HEALTH CARE SYSTEM UNSAFE
WASHINGTON - The nation's health care system is a tangled maze that too often leaves Americans with inadequate, outdated, even unsafe therapy, according to a scathing report Thursday that recommends an urgent overhaul to bring 21st century care to more patients.
U.S. specialists know sophisticated and effective ways to fight killers like diabetes, heart disease and breast cancer.

Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service
The Kansas City Star
March 2, 2001, Friday
Report criticizes widespread problems with American health-care system
KANSAS CITY, Mo. _ In a scathing report, a committee of the Institute of Medicine on Thursday lambasted widespread defects in the American health-care system and made more than a dozen recommendations to improve the system.
"Quality problems are everywhere, affecting many patients," the committee said in its report, titled "Crossing the Quality Chasm: A New Health Care System for the 21st Century."
"Between the health care we have and the health care we could have lies not just a gap, but a chasm," the group said.

Star Tribune (Minneapolis, MN)
March 2, 2001, Friday, Metro Edition
U.S. health system is ailing, report says;
The Institute of Medicine says nothing short of an extensive overhaul is needed to create a system of care that can break free of the restraints and old habits that are hazardous to Americans' health.
Despite tremendous advances in medical science, the quality of health care delivered in clinics and hospitals is inadequate, leaving patients in a fragmented, frustrating system that too often does more harm than good, a blue-ribbon panel said Thursday.
The Institute of Medicine, which advises Congress on medical issues, said in its report that a major overhaul is needed so that medical care can break out of the restraints placed upon it by finances, professional expectations, government regulations and habits.
"We are saying that the care the American population gets is not what they should get," said Harvard Medical School's Donald M. Berwick, a member of the panel, which evaluated the state of U.S. health care. "The game is over. It's time for a new system."

Telegraph Herald (Dubuque, IA)
March 2, 2001, Friday
Report: National health-care system woefully lacking; Tangled maze: Institute recommends an overhaul to bring 21st-century care to patients
WASHINGTON (AP) - U.S. scientists have developed highly effective treatments for many diseases but too many Americans get inadequate, outdated or even unsafe therapy instead because the nation's health-care system is a tangled maze, the Institute of Medicine said in a scathing report Thursday.
It recommends an urgent overhaul to bring 21st-century care to more patients, and urges Congress to set aside $ 1 billion over the next three to five years to spur programs that help.
Key to improvement is getting more doctors to follow scientific evidence and making the health-care system respond more quickly to patients' needs - even if they are sick at 2 a.m. or on the weekend.

TULSA WORLD
March 2, 2001
Health scare New study produces alarming findings
A new study finding that the country's health-care system is a confusing and intimidating morass that often results in inadequate, outdated and even unsafe treatments should be a wake-up call to anyone with any interest in health care -- which of course is everyone.
The report by the Institute of Medicine noted that effective and up-to-the-minute treatment regimens are known for many diseases, but too often patients have trouble getting a basic, comprehensive, physical exam, much less a specialist.
The report is a follow-up to the shocking announcement two years ago that medical mistakes kill from 44,000 to 98,000 hospitalized Americans a year. That report has led to some major changes in the way hospitals diagnose and treat patients.
 

American Family Physician
March 1, 2001
Toxic Cascades: A Comprehensive Way to Think About Medical Errors.
Current thinking about threats to patient safety caused by medical errors is often focused on the immediate consequences of mistakes in the hospital setting that affect specific aspects of care, such as testing procedures or medications. Some mistakes, however, become apparent distant from where they were committed and only after a lapse in time. The model of a toxic cascade organizes an approach to making U.S. health care safer for patients by locating upstream sources and downstream consequences of errors within a comprehensive, multilevel scheme.

The Deseret News (Salt Lake City, UT)
March 1, 2001, Thursday
SECTION: LOCAL; Pg. B01
Report hits medicine in U.S. hard
American medicine is the most sophisticated and advanced in the world, but patients often receive poor or even dangerous care. Physicians don't do enough to keep updated on medical advances. Patients wait weeks and even months for nonurgent care. And fixing the health-care system will take a major overhaul that would refocus health care on the patient's needs.
That's the view of a highly critical report released Thursday by the Institute of Medicine in the National Academy of Sciences, an organization created by Abraham Lincoln to advise the government. The report is a follow-up to the group's 1999 findings that medical mistakes kill from 44,000 to 98,000 hospitalized Americans each year. Some scientists have challenged those numbers, but hospitals nationwide have scrambled to reduce mistakes since its release.

Emerging Infectious Diseases
March 1, 2001
Feeding Back Surveillance Data To Prevent Hospital-Acquired Infections.
According to a 1996 Institute of Medicine (IOM) report, preventable "adverse health events," a category defined as injuries such as medical errors (a failure of planned actions) and hospital-acquired infections caused by medical interventions, are responsible for 44,000 to 98,000 deaths per year at a cost of $ 17-$ 29 billion (1). The IOM report recommended immediate and strong mandatory reporting of medical errors and voluntary reporting of other adverse health events, suggesting that monitoring leads to reduction. A hallmark: of monitoring any adverse health event is reporting the information back to those who need to know. We examine the value of feeding back information on hospital-acquired infections to reduce and prevent them.
Hospital-Acquired Infections Surveillance Systems as a Model to Monitor and Prevent Other Adverse Health Events
Hospital-acquired infections affect approximately 2 million persons each year (2). Such infections have been monitored in the United States since the 1970s, and the monitoring is often a model for monitoring other adverse health events (3). Principles used in the surveillance of hospital-acquired infections are strikingly similar to those used in the continuous quality improvement process in manufacturing (4). Both systems emphasize changes at the system rather than individual level. Deming described two types of errors in manufacturing: special causes and usual causes. Special causes of error comprise only 5% to 10% of all errors; usual causes constitute the remainder. Similarly, only 5% to 10% of hospital-acquired infections occur in recognized outbreaks (4,5).

Nursing Management
March 1, 2001
Size up the big three; standards in medical care
In life and in business, it's nice to have standards. In information technology (IT), it's critical.
Several organizations--both government and professional--are working hard to develop standards for just about everything in health care, from transactions and code sets to patient safety and nursing informatics.
HIPAA: Standardize health care data
When the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) published the administrative simplification provisions of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) 4 years ago, many of us hoped that they'd quietly go away. They didn't.

PR Newswire
March 1, 2001, Thursday
Plexus Institute Praises IOM's Bold Proposal for Health Care Reform
"Until now, the ailing American health care system has been misdiagnosed," said Curt Lindberg, president of the nonprofit Plexus Institute (http://www.PlexusInstitute.com).  "As its condition deteriorated, so did the quality of patient care.  With the Institute of Medicine's bold diagnosis and treatment plan, we're finally on the road to recovery."
As a National Academy, the function of the Institute of Medicine (http://www.iom.edu) is to advise the nation on health care policy.  Today, IOM released the second in a series of reports that critique the US health care system and outline strategies for quantum improvement. Crossing the Quality Chasm: A New System for the 21st Century follows in the footsteps of last year's To Err is Human: Building a Safer Health Care System, which estimated that from 44,000 to 98,000 people die each year due to medical errors.
Crossing the Quality Chasm states that medical errors are symptoms of a dysfunctional system. The report proposes a broad overhaul based on bottom-up, evolutionary change. It identifies ten simple rules that currently govern interactions between providers and patients at the micro-system level (a nursing unit or physician's practice) and proposes a new set of rules. "The entire report is inspired by the science of complex adaptive systems (CAS)," said Paul Plsek, a consultant and Senior Fellow at the Boston-based Institute for Healthcare Improvement.
"This is just-in-time visionary thinking," praised Lindberg. "The health care system is showing more signs of extreme stress.

The San Diego Union-Tribune
February 27, 2001, Tuesday
Diagnosis is in: Technology helps doctors do their jobs
Dr. Dennis Karounos used to have to search all over the ward if he needed a Physician's Desk Reference.
Today, Karounos, the director of the diabetes program at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, simply whips out the handheld computer he keeps strapped to his waist to click on everything from the treatments available for a rare endocrine tumor to the date and time of his next dental appointment.
"I have three textbooks on medicine on my Palm Pilot," Karounos said. "When I'm on call on the weekends I don't even take a pen with me."

The Capital (Annapolis, MD)
February 26, 2001, Monday
Lawmakers want fewer medical mistakes
With deaths nationwide from preventable medical errors outpacing the number of people who die annually from AIDS or highway accidents, two legislators are working to address the problem in Maryland.
Dels. Brian K. McHale and Peter Hammen, both Baltimore Democrats, have drafted a bill to require the Maryland Health Care Commission to develop a plan aimed at reducing preventable medical errors in the state.
The Patients' Safety Act of 2001 would require that all medical errors be reported to certain General Assembly committees. It also would encourage health-care practitioners to voluntarily report their mistakes. The bill was introduced on Feb. 12.

The Charleston Gazette
February 26, 2001, Monday
Readers' forum
Kanawha County priorities wrong
Editor:
In Tuesday's Gazette, there was an article about building a larger Kanawha County library. Where is this money going to come from? I think the people of Kanawha County would rather have more police and firefighters than a larger library. Priorities are all in the wrong places.
I used to live in Kanawha County. But now that I see how badly they have messed up things, I'm glad I no longer have to pay for it. Lights on bridges that cost a fortune (but they look good!) and a larger library with not enough police and firefighters to defend the patrons or keep it from burning to the ground (but more parking space!). Makes sense to me.

Drug Topics
February 19, 2001
New JCAHO patient safety standards stress prevention; The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations JCAHO; Brief Article
The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) has revised its guidelines on patient safety. The commission will require hospitals and similar groups to identify and address potential patient safety problems before errors occur. The shift to prevention is based on standards long used in aerospace and other high-risk industries.
"We have built up a medical culture that is counter to patient safety because of the tendency to blame individuals," explained JCAHO safety specialist Richard Croteau, M.D. "We have to change processes and procedures to make it difficult to make a mistake. These are principles found in other high-risk industries and quite transferable to health care."

PR Newswire
February 16, 2001, Friday
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan Foundation Seeks Researchers For Grant Program to Reduce Accidental Injuries in Hospitals;
Foundation seeks letters of interest from Michigan medical community
The Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan Foundation, the philanthropic affiliate of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, is seeking letters of interest from Michigan-based clinicians and researchers interested in developing ways to improve patient safety by reducing errors and accidental injuries in hospitals.
The BCBSM Foundation has dedicated $500,000 to this initiative to award grants to applicants who will conduct research and disseminate information on best practices that improve patient safety in hospitals.
Patient safety received nationwide attention last year after the release of a report by the Institute of Medicine's Committee on Quality of Health Care in America.  The report examined avoidable errors.  Preventable medical errors were estimated to result in 44,000 to 98,000 avoidable deaths and to cost as much as $29 billion per year nationally.
Last June, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan partnered with physicians, pharmacists, nurses, hospitals, health care purchasers, organized labor and health plans to form the Michigan Health and Safety Coalition.  The coalition was the first group of its kind in the state to bring together a diverse group of individuals and organizations committed to improving the safety of patient care.
"The BCBSM Foundation is working with the coalition and the health care community to reduce medical errors in hospitals," said Ira Strumwasser, Foundation CEO.  "We're interested in identifying and fixing systemic problems that allow errors to occur.  Research efforts are crucial identifying and disseminating information on the best ways to reduce medical errors."
 

The Roanoke Times
February 12, 2001, Monday
Medical Errors Kill More Than Car Crashes or AIDS, New Report Postulates
Medical errors kill 44,000 to 98,000 U.S. hospital patients a year -- more than breast cancer, vehicle crashes or AIDS, a report by a leading research group estimated. Countless more are injured, according to the Institute of Medicine, which ranked medical errors the nation's eighth most common cause of death.
Because the problem is believed to be so acute, hospitals nationwide -- including major hospitals here -- are putting in place new procedures to prevent mistakes.
Medication errors in hospitals, one of the most common mistakes, kill more people than workplace accidents, according to the research institute, an arm of the National Academy of Sciences. The institute provides information and policy advice to health care and science officials. The report estimated medical errors cost $ 17 billion to $ 29 billion a year in health and disability costs, lost income and productivity.

The Roanoke Times
February 11, 2001, Sunday
Virginia Health Group to Begin Researching Medical Errors
Nobody knows how many medical errors occur in this country.
The federal government isn't keeping track. Neither are the states. Nor are Virginia's four regional coroners. Major health care institutions in Western Virginia won't reveal how often errors take place. Ask how many people were hurt or killed by medical errors in the past year and you'll be told records do not exist, are incomplete or not open to the public.

Roanoke Times & World News
February 11, 2001, Sunday, METRO EDITION
HOW MANY ERRORS? WHO KNOWS?
Nobody knows how many medical errors occur in this country.
The federal government isn't keeping track. Neither are the states. Nor are Virginia's four regional coroners. Major health care institutions in Western Virginia won't reveal how often errors take place. Ask how many people were hurt or killed by medical errors in the past year and you'll be told records do not exist, are incomplete or not open to the public.

Roanoke Times & World News
February 11, 2001, Sunday, METRO EDITION
MEDICAL MISTAKES;
HOSPITALS SWITCH FOCUS FROM PUNISHMENT TO PREVENTION
MEDICAL ERRORS KILL 44,000 to 98,000 U.S. hospital patients a year - more than breast cancer, vehicle crashes or AIDS, a report by a leading research group estimated. Countless more are injured, according to the Institute of Medicine, which ranked medical errors the nation's eighth most common cause of death.
Because the problem is believed to be so acute, hospitals nationwide - including major hospitals here - are putting in place new procedures to prevent mistakes.
Medication errors in hospitals, one of the most common mistakes, kill more people than workplace accidents, according to the research institute, an arm of the National Academy of Sciences. The institute provides information and policy advice to health care and science officials. The report estimated medical errors cost $17 billion to $29 billion a year in health and disability costs, lost income and productivity.

The Sunday Gazette Mail
February 11, 2001, Sunday
Doctors pick up on PDAs
LEXINGTON, Ky. - Dr. Dennis Karounos used to have to search all over the ward if he needed a Physician's Desk Reference. Today, Karounos, the director of the diabetes program at the University of Kentucky, simply whips out the handheld computer he keeps strapped to his waist to click on everything from the treatments available for a rare endocrine tumor to the date and time of his next dental appointment.
"I have three textbooks on medicine on my Palm Pilot," Karounos said. "When I'm on call on the weekends I don't even take a pen with me."

Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service
Lexington Herald-Leader
February 8, 2001, Thursday
Downloading diagnoses: Computers help doctors manage records, treatment
LEXINGTON, Ky. _ Dr. Dennis Karounos used to have to search all over the ward if he needed a Physician's Desk Reference. Today, Karounos, the director of the diabetes program at the University of Kentucky, simply whips out the handheld computer he keeps strapped to his waist to click on everything from the treatments available for a rare endocrine tumor to the date and time of his next dental appointment.
"I have three textbooks on medicine on my Palm Pilot," Karounos said. "When I'm on call on the weekends I don't even take a pen with me."

PR Newswire
February 6, 2001, Tuesday
CHIM Unveils Strategic Initiative to Improve Patient Safety Through Information Technology at HIMSS 2001;
-Nonprofit Trade Association Partners with Industry Leaders to Help Combat Costly Medical Errors-
CHIM, the Center for Healthcare Information Management, along with its corporate partners 3M Health Information Systems, Eclipsys Corporation, ePhysician, and Per-Se Technologies Inc., today announced its joint Patient Safety Initiative focused on identifying the power of information technology in aiding the mitigation of medical errors.  The CHIM Patient Safety Initiative seeks to provide healthcare organizations with impartial data that demonstrates how, and to what degree, information technology can help reduce medical errors in both ambulatory and inpatient settings.
Healthcare information technology vendors and institutions, both CHIM members and non-CHIM members, are invited to submit their system's performance data in case study format, to CHIM for review.  This review will consist of verification by an independent Advisory Board of industry experts selected by CHIM, and through independent corroboration; for example, with the Chief Medical Officer of the healthcare setting where data was collected or through publication in a peer-reviewed journal.  Advisory Board members will be announced this spring.
"This Advisory Board will contain some of the best minds in patient safety and this Initiative will provide quality control that will ultimately benefit patients," explains Carla Smith, CEO of CHIM.  "We look forward to sharing positive results with key legislative decision-makers once we have gathered sufficient information.  To that end, we invite any organization with relevant data to contact us."
By synthesizing data from various case studies on information technology systems, CHIM is providing a much needed objecti