December 22, 2005

Medical errors reporting law could benefit consumers, hospitals

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – A new state law that will require Indiana hospitals to report medical errors in more than two dozen categories can help hospital patients, a Purdue University health-care expert said.

Under the rule, which takes effect Jan. 1, the state will make the errors at each hospital available for public review. Indiana and Minnesota are the only states in the nation that not only require error reporting but also will identify the hospitals reporting errors.

"Change is a constant in the health-care industry, and this law focuses attention on helping Indiana hospitals better track their errors and making them more effective," said Joseph Pekny, interim director of the Regenstrief Center for Healthcare Engineering, a research facility at Purdue that's applying engineering principles to help eliminate inefficiencies in the health-care industry.

At Regenstrief, Purdue researchers are focusing on improving safety and efficiency of patient care, providing more effective deployment of physicians, nurses and other health-care personnel, and better coordinating inpatient and outpatient treatment so providers can focus on patients and care.

In this case, Regenstrief's goal is to help providers learn as much as possible from medical errors to improve the delivery of health care, Pekny said.

"Health care provides some of the most complex and important services, so providing resources to help providers be the best they can be is our primary mission," he said.

Data from Indiana's hospitals will be collected during 2006, and the state's first report will be available to consumers in 2007.

Realizing there was a dearth of data in Indiana, Gov. Mitch Daniels ordered the Indiana State Department of Health to establish the Medical Error Reporting System to make Indiana hospitals more accountable to patients. Under the new law, hospitals and surgery centers must report mistakes within 15 days of their discovery.

In 1999 an Institute of Medicine report estimated that 44,000 to 98,000 patients die each year in U.S. hospitals because of preventable errors, a number that some experts think may be much higher.

The Regenstrief Center for Healthcare Engineering was launched by Purdue in February within Discovery Park's e-Enterprise Center. The $12.4 million e-Enterprise Center is set to open in January 2007 in a 49,000-square-foot building on the southwest edge of campus. About 25 percent of that space will be for the Regenstrief Center.

Writer: Phillip Fiorini, (765) 496-3133, pfiorini@purdue.edu

Source: Joseph Pekny, 494-7901, pekny@purdue.edu

Purdue News Service: (765) 494-2096; purduenews@purdue.edu

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