The Indiana State Department of Health released the annual report of the Medical Error Reporting System (MERS), which includes reported events for calendar year 2007. The report is designed to provide reliable data on medical errors and improve patient safety. According to the data, 105 medical errors were reported for 2007 with 101 events occurring at hospitals and 4 events occurring at ambulatory surgery centers.
According to the 2007 report, 27 of the 105 reported events were stage 3 or 4 pressure ulcers acquired after admission to the facility. Other reported events include:
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24 events of retention of a foreign object in a patient after surgery;
- 23 events of surgery performed on the wrong body part; and
- 31 events fell in the remaining 24 categories, which can be found in the 2007 MERS report on the State Department of Health Web site at: www.statehealth.IN.gov by clicking on “Medical Errors Reporting System.”
Indiana’s error reporting system requires hospitals and surgery centers to track 27 serious preventable errors as identified by the National Quality Forum, a nonprofit group that works to improve health care.
