MA Department of Public Health Releases Annual Study of Serious Reportable Errors

The Massachusetts Department of Public Health released its annual study of serious reportable hospital errors. The report lists a decline in surgeries performed on the wrong body part, down to 24 in 2014 from 36 in 2013. The health department’s report also included error reports from rehabilitation, psychiatric, and state-run public health hospitals, which reported 236 incidents in 2014, up from 206 the year before. Also, for the first time, the 59 outpatient surgery centers in the state reported errors — 10 in all, six of them wrong-site surgery.  Although data on serious reportable events have been collected since 2008, the definitions changed in 2013, invalidating comparisons with previous years.  Data showing the number of errors at each hospitalis available online at http://www.mass.gov/eohhs/gov/departments/dph/programs/hcq/serious-reportable-event-sres.html