About medical error

One of the greatest challenges that will face healthcare providers over the next 10 years is the elimination of medical error in hospitals.

Medical error – the impact on patient safety

To illustrate the extent of the problem or medical error, it has been estimated that in the United States approximately 98,000 people die in hospital by accident every year. Other studies have shown that up to one million medical errors occur in hospitals in every year. Of these, 50% are very serious, resulting in what are known as adverse events or adverse drug events (ADEs), and 20% are potentially fatal.

While the accuracy of these figures is open to some discussion, as one leading medical practitioner has stated, “Whatever the figure, any death is one death too many”.

Medical error – the impact on costs

Quite apart from the issue of patient safety, medical error places an enormous financial burden on the community. In the US, the average cost of errors arising from such factors as additional hospital admissions and re-admissions, increased length of stay, inappropriate use of drugs and duplication of treatment, has been calculated as US$2,000 - a total annual cost of US$2 billion nationally (some studies put the figure at 10 times this). 

It is important to note that these costs do not include the potential cost to hospitals of litigation as the result of negligence or malpractice.  The cost of litigation, plus associated increases in medical insurance premiums (a highly topical subject in Australia at the present time), can be expected to be a substantial contributor to healthcare costs.

The CPOE solution

In North America and Europe, a new generation of computer systems, generally known as "Computer Physician Order Entry" or CPOE Systems is being used to combat the problem of medical error, and is proving to have dramatic success.

For more information on CPOE, click here.
For information on the VisualMED CPOE System, click here.