Adverse events are on the decline in Minnesota hospitals over the last decade, since the state began requiring hospitals to report preventable errors to the Minnesota Department of Public Health, according to a report from the agency.
The report is one of two released in late January 2013 on adverse health events. The Adverse Health Events in Minnesota Report, January 2013 shows the number of adverse health events fell in the state in 2013, though deaths and preventable harms remained stable.
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The 10 Year Adverse Health Events Evaluation Report reports harm and preventable deaths, despite the flat-line on improvement in 2013, have fallen significantly over the past decade. In 2003, only 33 percent of surveyed staff considered patient safety to be "very high" priority, whereas 69 percent of staff surveyed in 2013 considered it to be a "very high" priority concern.
Additional findings from the report include the following:
- Preventable deaths fell from 25 in 2006 to 5 in 2011.
- Events resulting in serious disability fell from 1,000 in 2008 to 84 in 2013.
- Wrong-site surgeries and retained objects fell from 89 in 2011 to 61 in 2013.
- The total number of events reported in 2013 was 258, the first time that figure had been below 300.
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