Protocols Fail to Stop Surgery Mistakes
Despite efforts to end surgical errors, a new study shows that surgery mistakes are still occurring far too often.
Amputating the wrong leg or removing organs from the wrong patient are just a few common surgical blunders reported to a Colorado insurance database from 2002 to mid-2008. The study appears in the Archives of Surgery Medical Journal and includes 27,370 self-reported incidents.
Surgeons reported performing 25 operations on the wrong patients and 107 operations on the wrong body parts. About a quarter of those operations inflicted serious harm on the patients, and one patient died after a chest tube was placed on wrong side of his body.
Researchers say the numbers are considerably higher than previous estimates, despite a requirement that hospitals abide by a standard set of procedures aimed at preventing surgical mistakes. The study points out that the protocols only apply to the operating room, but most wrong-site, wrong patient errors start out in biopsy labs or during the imaging and diagnosis process.