Incidents of pressure ulcers, wrong-site surgeries and other surgical errors reported by Connecticut hospitals have increased in the last five years, despite myriad efforts to curb them, a new state report shows.
At the same time, state health department investigations of many hospital adverse events, such as patient injuries from falls, perforations resulting in disability, and death or serious injury due to surgery, have been rare, data in the report shows. For example, of 196 cases reported since 2007 in which patients were injured by a perforation during a colonoscopy or other procedure, the Department of Public Health (DPH) investigated just 20, or one in 10 cases.
The new Adverse Event Report, prepared by the DPH, marks the first time that acute-care hospitals and other medical facilities have been publicly identified by name, as they report errors that caused harm to patients.
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