To assess the frequency of medical errors in surgery, researchers based at Harvard University decided to follow the meticulous methodology of a study conducted in the 1980s—one of the first to examine rates of patient harms during treatment. "We're trying to figure out, have things changed? Have they gotten better?" said Dr. David Bates, a professor who led the new research. Since that first Harvard Medical Practice Study, technology has improved, and efforts to improve patient safety have followed. The new findings are discouraging, CNN reports. "It's clear that the problem has not gone away," Bates said. "If anything, it's even bigger than it was."
The study, published Thursday in the British Medical Journal, found that more than one-third of patients admitted to US hospitals for surgery have adverse events related to their care. At least 1 in 5 of the complications were attributed to medical errors. Researchers arrived at the figures after looking into the outcomes for more than 1,000 people admitted to 11 hospitals for surgery in Massachusetts in 2018. Of that group, 38% had at least one adverse event, 160 of which were serious or life-threatening. The study also found:
- More than 250 of the surgery patients had at least one adverse event that later was deemed to be potentially preventable.
- 103 of them had events that were definitely preventable or the result of medical errors.
- The most common types of complications were related to the surgery. Next came medication errors and health care-associated infections.
Although studies through the years have not used the same methodology, making direct comparisons difficult, the new findings are in line with those of previous research and indicate progress in patient safety has been limited. "These are longstanding issues that are not really being properly addressed," one advocate said, "because I think they're not as high in the consciousness of either patients or health care providers as they should be." (More
surgery stories.)
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