Vim & Vigor - Fall 2011 - Parrish Medical Center - (Page 46)

F PLAY IT alse rumors can be as contagious as the ﬂu, including ones about hospital safety. Here’s an example of how rumors can spread. Imagine that your neighbor’s plumber’s friend heard from his wife’s cousin’s delivery guy that a hospital somewhere amputated the wrong limb of a patient. The delivery guy learned about it from a website … or was it an Internet forum? Or maybe a viral email? Anyway, he’s sure it’s true. Honest. He just can’t place which hospital in which country. Medical errors do occur and are taken seriously, but in this age of instant, and sometimes false, information dissemination, it can be difﬁcult to separate fact from ﬁction. For starters, it’s hard to get a handle on the true number of medical errors that occur in hospitals. Consistently deﬁning and measuring safety and mistakes is a challenge. But since the Institute of Medicine’s landmark report in 1999, “To Err Is Human: Building a Safer Health System,” much attention has been devoted to tracking errors and Don’t be fooled by these ﬁve common misconceptions about hospital safety resolving them. To put the recent picture into perspective, the HealthGrades Patient Safety in American Hospitals Study 2010 reports that 958,202 “patient safety events” involving 908,401 Medicare beneﬁciaries occurred from 2006–2008. That is 2.29 percent of almost 39.5 million Medicare hospitalizations—meaning the chance of a medical error occurring is low. The Institute of Medicine, in a 2006 report, cited studies that estimated 400,000 preventable injuries related to drug errors occurred each year in hospitals. Again, that number is out of millions of cases. Hospitals and national organizations constantly strive to reduce those numbers. “It’s something hospitals take very seriously … because one is too many,” says Beth Feldpush, senior associate director for policy for the American Hospital Association. With that in mind, let’s take a look at ﬁve common worries regarding hospital safety, and try to ease them. 46 Vim & Vigor · FALL 2 011 SAF PHOTOGRAPHY BY PHOTOLIBRARY

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Vim & Vigor - Fall 2011 - Parrish Medical Center

Vim & Vigor - Fall 2011 - Parrish
Contents
Tasty Tips
Opening Thoughts
Community Calendar
Don't Be a Drowsy Driver
The Art of Nursing
Healthy Hues
The New Survivors
First (Aid) Things First
Find Your Groove
A Healthy Tune
Stay in Circulation
'X' Marks the Spot
Pregnancy Predictors
Play It Safe
What's New?
A Walking, Talking Fitness Billboard
Community Health
Special Foundation Focus
Ask the Expert

Vim & Vigor - Fall 2011 - Parrish Medical Center