Looking for Medical Injuries Where the Light Is Bright

Understanding safer practices in health care: a prologue for the role of indicators

“…The nature of these expectations is especially important during the measurement of safety. When it comes to ‘adverse events’ or even ‘errors’ (Anonymous 2003; Weingart & Iezzoni 2003), providers have always mentioned the probabilistic nature of the relationship between processes and outcomes, indicating that a certain number of adverse events are ‘expected’. Interestingly, this is one of the main reasons why indicators such as ‘unexpected returns’ or variations on that theme exist – insinuating that, at least for providers, such events are ‘expected’.…”

“…Furthermore, the Taiwanese health care system has supplemented the approach with an organizational differentiation of hospitals (municipal, non‐municipal) as well as the coexistence of parallel and complementary approaches to performance measurement and accreditation. Finally, the US hospitals and health care delivery organizations have seen the issue of accountability (via report cards, accreditation requirements) (JCAHO 2003; NCQA 2003), preceding the IOM report of 1999, hence establishing a base upon which much of today's multifaceted approaches on safer practices are founded (Weingart & Iezzoni 2003). Furthermore, there are numerous organizations (and associated strategies for measurement) proposing solutions to health care organizations’ needs for improving the safety of their practices.…”

Quality and Safety of Minimally Invasive Surgery: Past, Present, and Future

“…Of these medical errors, 18 SREs account for about 2.4 million extra hospital days and $9.3 billion in excess charges every year. 19 Owing to the large variation among hospitals, there has been some debate about the magnitude of the impact of medical errors. However, the general consensus is that these serious yet preventable errors lead to a significant increase in mortality, length of stay, and cost.…”

A Historical and Qualitative Analysis of Different Medical Imaging Techniques

“…Ultrasound imaging is used to check position of fetus in womb whereas Doppler Ultrasound can also check heartbeat of fetus. When long term side effects of X-Rays were not known , it was common practice to use X-Rays for diagnosis in pregnancy but later study on 700,000 children born between 1947 and 1964 in 37 major hospitals revealed that cancer mortality of children whose mother received XRays during pregnancy is 40% higher than the children whose mother had not gone for the X-Rays diagnosis [13]. Unlike XRays ultrasound are non-ionizing radiation so it doesnot have same risks as that of X-Rays.…”