Report: Minnesota hospitals made more errors but had fewer deaths in 2014

The Minnesota Department of Health last week published its annual adverse health event report, with more health errors reported last year but fewer deaths as a result of adverse events. The statewide public reporting system has been in place for 11 years, requiring Minnesota’s 143 hospitals and 70 ambulatory surgical centers to report adverse events and analyze their causes.

Four new reportable event categories were added last year: Death or serious injury resulting from failure to follow up or communicate lab, pathology, or radiology test results; irretrievable loss of an irreplaceable biological specimen; neonatal death or serious injury associated with labor and delivery in a low-risk pregnancy; and death or serious injury of a patient associated with the introduction of a metallic object in the MRI area. Including the new categories, there were 308 adverse events reported between October 2013 and October 2014, up from 258 the previous year. There were 13 deaths reported as a result of adverse health events, the lowest total since 2011. 

Read the report for more information.