St Cloud Hospital Again Sees A Reduction In Adverse Medical Events In 2011

The Minnesota adverse medical reports are out and there was an increase of 11 events in 2011 from 2010. A total of 316 time, serious preventable hospital errors took place. Locally, St Cloud Hospital had 8 of those events. It's a good thing that the legislature passed these reporting requirements, but a review of these reports shows that before these requirements, the number of reported adverse events would have still been high.

The 8 reported adverse health events at St. Cloud Hospital were down from the 10 listed in last year’s public report. None of the events resulted in death. Two “surgical or other invasive procedures” performed at St. Cloud Hospital from Oct. 7, 2010 to Oct. 6, 2011 — the period covered in today’s report — resulted in “retention of a foreign object in a patient.” There were also two adverse health events of “surgery/other invasive procedure performed on wrong body part”

To see a full copy of the adverse health events report and additional information, visit the MDH’s Adverse Health Events Web page, at www.health.state.mn.us/patientsafety. More information about hospitals can be found at http://www.mnhospitals.org.

The troubling part is to think of all the past events that have gone by unreported. How many people were killed or severely injured and nothing was said? Hopefully, the increased scrutiny will lead to less overall medical events.