Pennsylvania health officials reported over 302,000 medical errors and hospital-acquired infections in 2017, prompting hospital leaders to discuss best care practices, according to Pennsylvania Patient Safety Authority data cited by The Morning Call.
To spark conversations about avoiding patient harm, healthcare administrators from Allentown, Pa.-based Lehigh Valley Health Network screened "To Err is Human," an 80-minute documentary on fatal medical errors.
The screening was hosted by Lehigh University's healthcare systems engineering program and Lehigh Valley Business Coalition on Healthcare, an organization for lowering healthcare costs and improving care quality.
Hospitals must focus on procedures for identifying human errors, such as checklists, and encourage employees to disclose mistakes, health officials said after the film screening.
The documentary offered solutions to curbing medical errors, including more federal funding for research into best practices in hospitals; technology to reduce mistakes; and transparency in reporting mistakes.