Few Medical Errors are Reported

Gibson said she believes that what’s needed is a public system for the reporting of adverse events in hospitals, like a Consumer Product Safety Commission for health care. “If your child gets injured by a defective crib, there’s a system for you to report that,” she said. “We need that for hospitals. There should be an open capability for reporting events online, in person, any way you want, whether you’re on the hospital staff, a patient or a family member. Such a system should acknowledge the report, provide for an immediate action step in urgent situations and offer assistance and support to the person doing the reporting.”

But overall, the response in the healthcare industry to the OIG’s report has been “we need to do more research,” Gibson said. “We don’t need more research, we need to apply what is known. There are institutions that have made pockets of progress, and patients are alive today and home with their families because we’ve made care safer, but safety still hasn’t become a system property in health care.”