More than One-Third of New Jersey Residents Are Victims of Medical Error

Two key findings from AARP's (American Association of Retired Persons) New Jersey chapter's recent "Does it Make You Sick?" survey shine even more light on the striking issue of preventable medical errors. According to The Record:

• More than a third of New Jersey residents surveyed say they or a family member have been a victim of a medical error.
• 90 percent would like the state to publicly report the number of errors at each hospital and health care facility.

In the AARP survey of 805 adults, 21 percent said a family member had experienced a preventable medical error, 14 percent said they themselves had experienced such an error, and 2 percent said both they and a family member had. Ninety percent support public disclosure of the number of preventable errors at individual health care facilities.

According to Betsy Ryan, the hospital association's president-elect. "New Jersey hospitals handle approximately 19 million patient cases each year, and even one serious error is one too many."

"Consumers want this information," said Patricia Kelmar, associate state director of AARP New Jersey. "Hospitals are getting a lot of public funding. We should know what the quality of care." AARP New Jersey will seek legislation this year to require public disclosure of some of the 27 types of errors reported to the state, Kelmar said. The New Jersey Hospital Association supports the current confidential reporting system.

In New Jersey, the state Department of Health compiles hospital reports of preventable mistakes and releases the aggregate numbers two years later -- without telling the public which institutions made the mistakes. Hospitals reported a total of 376 errors in 2005 and 450 in 2006. These resulted in 57 deaths in 2005 and 42 in 2006, according to the state. The most common errors reported were patient falls, bedsores and surgical errors such as wrong-site surgery.

Recently, large insurers' Aetna and Wellpoint have drawn patient safety lines in the sand with incorporating no-pay policies on preventable medical errors in the instances of "never events" (events that should "never happen" like patient falls and leaving objects in patients after surgeries). But with powerhouse associations like AARP focusing more efforts on preventable medical errors, hospitals and hospital administrators will need to significantly ramp-up patient safety protocols and systems as more media attention focuses on this pivotal and altogether preventable issue.

As we take part in Patient Safety Awareness Week we hope this initiative brings awareness to just how far hospitals still need to go to exponentially improve some very basic safety practices--like hand hygiene compliance--as these protocols produce astounding improvements to errors reduced and lives saved. We know the problem, we now need to continue pressing hospital administrators to implement solutions.