Online Hospital Complications Calculator

The Grattan Institute has developed an online calculator that enables hospital patients and their families to discover how likely it is that complications will arise from a wide range of treatments. Using detailed hospital statistics compiled over three years, as well as information about the patient, the calculator instantaneously determines the chances of them suffering a complication: anything from the inconvenient to the dangerous.

The Grattan Institute has also found that a patient’s risk of developing a complication also varies dramatically depending on which hospital they go to. Using detailed hospital statistics compiled over three years, as well as information about the patient, the calculator instantaneously determines the chances of them suffering a complication: anything from the dangerous to the merely inconvenient.  

Hospital complications calculator

Strengthening safety statistics: How to make hospital safety data more useful

Australia needs to reform how it collects and uses information about patient safety, to reduce the risk of more scandals and tragedies in our hospitals, according to Grattan Institute’s latest report, Strenghtening safety statistics: How to make hospital safety data more useful. The system is awash with data, but the information is poorly collated, not shared with patients, and often not given to doctors, explains Health Program Director Stephen Duckett in this podcast. Inexcusably, private hospitals are left outside state safety monitoring of hospitals. The performance of private hospitals should be analysed in the same way as public hospitals, and the results fed back to them and reported widely.
To ensure hospital safety data is more useful, it must be more trustworthy, relevant and accessible. The many different data sets should be linked, and the information should be presented more clearly so doctors can act on it and patients can understand it.

You can listen to the podcast or download the report here. 

Performing the wrong procedure

Performing the Wrong Procedure is the first article in a new section of JAMA concentrating on performance improvement. This is a case report about a 90-year-old woman ho had a dialysis catheter mistakenly placed instead of a normal central line for antibiotic administration. Various options to correct the error are presented with a root cause analysis and the final outcomes of the case.

Minnier T, Phrampus P, Waddell L. Journal of the American Medical Association. 2016;316(11):1207-8. http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/jama.2016.9134  Access the full text via CIAP if you are an employee of NSW Health.

Speak Up: Easier to Say than Do

Have you ever made a mistake? This short article in the open access Journal of Perioperative & Critical Intensive Care Nursing states that hospitals are no strangers to mistakes either,  In fact, it is well known that errors occur regularly which can lead to patient harm and unnecessary financial costs borne by the healthcare system. By upholding the expectation that nurses speak up, organizations can improve patient safety. Factors such as leaders who are good role models and organizations that reward speaking up can be built upon to strengthen a hospital’s culture of safety.

2016. Speak Up: Easier to Say than Do, Nicole Hall.  Journal of Perioperative & Critical Intensive Care Nursing. doi:10.4172/jpcic.1000111

Medical error - the third leading cause of death in the US

This is the title of an analysis article recently published in BMJ. Authors Martin Makery and Michael  Daniel calculated that in 2013, medical errors accounted for 251,454 deaths in the US. This puts this cause of death third, behind heart disease and cancer.  

Medical error is not normally included in statistics on causes of death as it is not recorded on death certificates, The authors call for better reporting and visibility around errors, which would hopefully lead to a more effective response. 

Makary MA, Daniel M. BMJ. 2016;353:i2139.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmj.i2139

Medical Error- the third leading cause of death in the US

BMJ has recently published an article on death caused medical error and how the number are underestimated. If you ask a group of health professional what are  the top five causes of death, medical error would not be on the list. And that is because in the US the death statistics compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are compiled using death certificates filled out by physicians, funeral directors, medical examiners and coroners.
But another major limitation of the death certificate is that it relies on assigning an International Classification of Disease (ICD) code to the cause of death. There is no code to capture diagnostic error, poor judgement, communication breakdown or inadequate skill which can directly result in patient harm and death.
"People don't just die from heart attacks and bacteria, they die from system-wide failings and poorly coordinated care," lead author Dr. Martin Makary, a professor of surgery and health policy at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine," "It's medical care gone awry."
 NSW Health staff can read the full text of the article in BMJ via CIAP otherwise ask your library staff.

• Makary Martin A, Daniel Michael. Medical error—the third leading cause of death in the US BMJ 2016; 353 :i2139