[medinformatics] Medical Errors Persist; Computerized Prescriptions Help

[Medical Informatics News]

Significant improvements have been made in some hospitals since the Institute of Medicine released a landmark report in 2000 that revealed many thousands of Americans die each year because of medical mistakes. However, nationwide, the rate of change is slow, and the death rate has not changed much. That according to a study in The Journal of the American Medical Association.The complexity of health care systems, a lack of leadership, the reluctance of doctors to admit errors and an insurance reimbursement system that rewards errors but often will not pay for practices that reduce those errors are all culprits according to the researchers.Computerized prescriptions, adding a pharmacist to medical teams and team training in the delivery of babies are among the improvements medical centers are making, the study finds. "The medical community now knows what it needs to do to deal with the problem. It just has to overcome the barriers to doing it," says study co-author Lucian Leape of Harvard's School of Public Health.Full text article available here.ReadPermalink*|*Email this*|*Linking*Blogs*|*Comments









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