Most Surgical Errors in VA Facilities Occur Because of Miscommunication
A new study shows that in spite of increased emphasis on patient safety, here are five to ten incorrect surgical errors performed in Veterans Administration facilities every day.
The study focused on 342 surgical problems that occurred in 130 VA hospitals between 2001 and mid-2006. For comparison purposes, researchers divided these problems into those that occurred inside and outside the operating room.
The researchers examined 212 adverse events that included wrong site surgeries, where the wrong procedure was performed, or procedures performed on the wrong patients. The researchers also examined 132 events where the staff was able to catch a problem before beginning the surgery.
• The researchers found that in most cases of surgical errors, failure in communication among the members of surgical team was the most important contributing factor. That fact doesn’t surprise Indiana medical malpractice lawyers, who frequently come across cases where members of the surgical team fail to coordinate.
• The researchers also found that there was an almost equal distribution of errors inside and outside the operating room. 50.9 percent of the wrong site surgeries, wrong patient surgeries and wrong surgeries occurred in the operating room, while the remaining occurred elsewhere.
• Most of these serious errors occurred during ophthalmology and invasive radiology procedures, followed by orthopedics.
• The most serious patient injuries were caused during pulmonary cases, where fluid was removed from the wrong side of the chest or procedures were performed on the wrong side of the chest. However, it may not be fair to blame these high rates of errors on these specialists. There is a possibility that these specialists either report their errors more honestly, or that errors in these fields are just harder to hide.
VA facilities tend to focus harder on patient safety, but are not without their problems, as the report shows. In fact as Indiana medical malpractice attorneys, we are concerned about the high number of surgical errors in VA facilities. If the situation is so worrisome at a VA facility where standards for patient safety tend to be higher, then it’s worth considering what the numbers are like outside VA clinics.
