Major Medical Errors to be Reported Starting 2008
The Illinois General Assembly passed a law which will require all major medical errors, called "never events", to be publically reported. The law requires all Illinois hospitals and surgery centers to publically admit if they commit any of 24 types of "never events." Some of these events include: performing the wrong surgical procedure; leaving a foriegn object in someone's body; or discharging an infant to the wrong person.
Although they are called never events, they happen all too often. Minnesota, which implemented a similar law years ago, recorded 90 'events' at 30 hospitals, resulting in 20 deaths and four serious disabilities in a 15 month period.
Read the Sun-Times article here.