Minnesota Department of Health released the fourteenth annual public report on adverse health events in Minnesota. The number of reportable adverse events in Minnesota hospitals, ambulatory surgical centers and community behavioral health hospitals has been slowly increasing for the last four years, reaching 341 between the reporting time period of October 2016 through October 2017. Minnesota’s Adverse Health Events reporting system has been in place for fourteen years and tracks 29 serious events, such as wrong-site surgeries, severe pressure ulcers, falls, or serious medication errors, which should rarely or never happen.
The Adverse Health Events Reporting Law, passed during the 2003 legislative session and modified again in 2004, provides health care consumers with information on how well hospitals, community behavioral health hospitals, and outpatient surgical centers are doing at preventing adverse events. The law requires that these facilities disclose when any of 29 serious reportable events occur and requires MDH to publish annual reports of the events by facility, along with an analysis of the events, the corrections implemented by facilities and any recommendations for improvement.
Read more:
- Adverse Health Events in Minnesota. 14th Annual Report. Minnesota Department of Health. February 2018 (PDF)
- Adverse Health Events Reporting Law: http://www.health.state.mn.us/patientsafety/ae/index.html