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News Specialist Ed Yeates reporting
For the most part, patients appear to fare quite well in Utah hospitals.
The State Health Department today released its first year report on patient safety, and the number of medical mistakes or errors is low compared to what a national model predicted.
Reporting is now required on a lot of things, including mistakes in surgery and disability or death resulting from care during a patient's hospital stay.
Seventy-six Utah Hospitals reported 34 events - including 18 deaths over the past 12 months.
Out of those 34 events, 10 patients were disabled, five had the wrong surgery, and one patient committed suicide.
Hospitals must also report adverse drug care, including errors in delivering or dosing medications.
Among 240,000 inpatients discharged at 41 acute care hospitals, only about 3 percent were reported as adverse drug events.
State health says the numbers may be too low and somewhat deceiving, and may reflect UNDER reporting in this first year.
But that will change as hospitals get a clearer definition of the regulations, and the state weeds out irregularities and flaws in how the stats are reported.
For now, State Health also will not share the reports with other regulatory agencies.
"The reason it is so important for this not to be a part of our regulatory system in the state is that as you regulate around these issues, your incentive for hospitals is not to report," says Scott Williams, M.D., deputy director at the health department.
The state and the Utah Hospital Association also want hospitals to share experiences with each other.
"Unless we're able to share information and to have general discussion about how we can improve, it's very unlikely that we are going to find the major changes and improvements we all desire," says Rick Kinnersley, president of the Utah Hospital Association.
And in the end, according to Scott Williams and Rick Kinnersley, isn't prevention - learning from one's mistakes - what the reporting is really all about?
The state does have regulatory clout if a hospital should try to hide or omit reports. Also, failure to comply could jeopardize a hospital's accreditation - which in the end would have severe financial consequences.
