JAMA Study Points To Patient Safety Risks Outside Hospital Walls

From the 15 June 2011 Medical News Today article

 

Ever since the Institute of Medicine issued its landmark report “To Err Is Human” in 1999, significant attention has been paid to improving patient safety in hospitals nationwide.

However, a high number of adverse events, including major injury and even death, occur in private physician offices and outpatient clinics as well. In a new study — the first of its kind — researchers at Weill Cornell Medical College found that the number and magnitude of events resulting from medical errors is surprisingly similar inside and outside hospital walls.

Published in today’s Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), the study ***uses malpractice claims data to assess the prevalence of adverse events in the outpatient setting. The researchers compared malpractice claims paid on behalf of physicians in hospitals versus doctors’ offices, relying on data from the National Practitioner Data Bank from 2005 through 2009.

In 2009 alone, close to 11,000 malpractice payments were made on behalf of physicians. Analysis of the data showed that about half of these were for errors that occurred in the hospital setting and half for adverse outcomes resulting from errors at the doctor’s office.

The researchers also found that adverse events in hospitals largely have to do with unsuccessful surgery, while negative outcomes in the outpatient setting are most often related to errors in diagnosis.

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