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Hospitals report on
unhealthy outcomes
SA Health’s report on unexpected, rare and preventable incidents in hospitals in 2010-11 identified 10 events compared to 14 the year before.
Minister for Health, John Hill said more than two million services were provided in South Australia’s public hospitals each year and staff did an outstanding job protecting the safety of patients.
“However, diagnosing and treating very sick or injured people is complex and unfortunately there are occasions where something goes wrong,” Mr Hill said
| System learns from rare events |
“These incidents, as well as situations where there was even the potential for something to go wrong, are investigated and any necessary action is taken to try and prevent it happening again.”
He said there had been considerable progress in a number of other areas of patient safety.
“This includes a new electronic safety learning system, improved hand hygiene rates, new guidelines for staff handovers and initiatives to reduce the risk of patients being injured by falls,” he said.
The South Australian Patient Safety Report 2010-2011 indicated there were three incidents of maternal death; two of suicide while an in-patient; three of retained instruments and two of medication error leading to death during the year.
The information is available at this PS News link.
Edition 150, 26 January 2012
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