Know Your Rights
Don’t Become A Hospital Medical Error Victim
A recent study by the National Academy of Sciences found that up to 98,000 Americans die needlessly in hospitals each year because of care and safety deficiencies. American medicine is unsurpassed in developing new ways of fighting disease and saving lives. But when it comes to preventing medical errors, the record leaves much to be desired. 
Perhaps the best way to avoid becoming a hospital medical error statistic is by checking now, before you end up in a hospital bed, to learn which hospitals in your area meet the highest quality standards and opting to be treated in the best available hospital if you have a choice. 
The website of the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO), which conducts regular top to bottom inspections of nearly all hospitals (www.jcaho.org), is a good place to start. Click on "QualityCheck" to find out a hospital's overall accreditation rating score on a scale of one to 100 and the scores received in dozens of specific performance areas, like "medication use" and "infection control."
The "Hospital Info" section of the New York State Health Department's web site (www.health.state.ny.us) is another source of useful information. It lists the services provided by each hospital in the state, along with the number of beds overall and in specialized units. If you want to know if a hospital has, say, a lithotripter (a machine that pulverizes kidney stones with ultrasound), you can get the answer here. The Department's website also discloses the number of complaints the public has filed against a hospital and any recent violations of the State hospital code found by the Department's inspectors.
Don't forget that when choosing a physician, you are in effect choosing a hospital. If you ever need to be to be hospitalized, you'll generally be admitted only to hospitals where your physician has admitting privileges unless you are referred to another doctor who practices elsewhere. So hospital affiliations should be a top consideration when you choose a doctor.
Experience is another key consideration when choosing a hospital. Studies have shown that there are fewer medical complications when a hospital has performed a particular procedure numerous times before. For example, a study published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine found that patients undergoing open heart surgery in hospitals that perform at least 200 open heart surgeries a year do better than patients in hospitals that perform less. So if you have a choice, ask how often a hospital -- or a doctor -- you are considering has performed the particular surgery or administered the treatment you are receiving and compare the numbers with other available hospitals and doctors. Practice does make perfect!
Medication mix-ups and dosage errors are the major cause of needless hospital deaths. Once you are hospitalized, and if you are able, request a list of all your medications. The chance of a medication error occurring will be reduced if you, a loved one, or a friend double checks the list every time you are given a medication to make sure you're the one who's supposed to be getting it and that the dosage is right.
The New York State Trial Lawyers Association (NYSTLA) believes that the Health Department and Legislature can and should make hospitals safer and comparing hospitals easier. Some needed actions are:
• Enforce the law that requires hospitals to report all "adverse incidents" to the Health Department. An adverse incident is an unintended and unwanted development in a patient's condition such as a surgical infection. The reporting law was enacted to give the Department the information it needs to monitor effectively the quality of hospital care and to step in when a hospital isn't taking adequate corrective actions. While some hospitals fully comply and report hundreds and even thousands of incidents every year, NYSTLA's review of reporting records reveals that many hospitals flout the law by reporting hardly any.
• Disclose much more meaningful hospital quality information on the Health Department's website. At the very least, the Department should give the public more information than the brief title of the section of the hospital code that was violated. What, specifically, did the hospital do wrong? Is it something to be concerned about?
• Require minimum hospital staffing levels, especially of registered nurses. According to a study by the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies, nurses in many hospitals are so overworked that quality of care is suffering. Studies have shown a direct correlation between higher nursing staffing levels and lower mortality rates.
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