Nevada Hospitals Now Have To Report Patient Safety Errors

As reported on rgj.com

By Frank X. Mullen Jr.

Nevada hospitals say they are improving their patient-safety records and that fewer patients are being injured in hospitals than ever before, but they don't back up those claims by releasing hard numbers of specific types of hospital errors from year to year. With the passage of new hospital transparency laws in this year's legislative session, that's about to change. Hospitals are now required to report to the public specific numbers of types of errors -- such as wrong-patient or wrong body part surgeries, falls resulting in severe injuries, and numbers of preventable infections and preventable bedsores.

That way, lawmakers said, prospective patients can compare hospitals' safety records.

Nationally and in Nevada, experts say many sentinel events -- the things that are "never" supposed to happen in hospitals -- happen fairly frequently but just aren't reported.

Last year, the Las Vegas Sun analyzed Nevada hospital billing records that contained no personal information about patients. According to the Sun, hospitals billed to treat 1,363 occurrences that could fit the definition of sentinel events in 2008 and 2009. But hospitals reported only 402 sentinel events to state health officials for those years.

Suzanne Henry, spokeswoman for the Texas-based Consumers Union's Safe Patient Project, said Nevada's new laws will help Nevadans make decisions about care and shed light on whether hospitals are reporting their errors accurately.

To read full article please visit http://www.rgj.com/article/20110621/NEWS/106190359/1002