Doctors regularly operate on the wrong part of the body – and even on the wrong patient, a medical claims insurer has revealed.
Researchers from the Denver Health Medical Center discovered the prevalence of error-strewn medicine when they analysed the reports from one insurance company that provides liability insurance for doctors. Of the 27,370 ‘adverse events” reported by doctors in Colorado between 2002 and 2008, 25 were performed on the wrong patient and 107 on the wrong part of the body. Tragically, 20 per cent of the wrong patients and 35 per cent of wrong part of the body resulted in significant harm, and one patient died.
(Source: Archives of Surgery, 2010; 145: 978-84).
