100,000 people dead each year due to medical mistakes? Really?

[ERCougar]

Originally Posted by MikeWaters

100k is the number I have heard.

We are always trying to implement new procedures. Problems include bad handwriting, medications that sound or are spelled similarly, and many other things.

For example, I had a friend who told me once he ordered 4mg Magnesium Sulfate to be given IV. The nurse called him back said "We don't have 4mg of morphine, I've checked". And he almost shat a brick.

In case you don't know, 4mg of morphine IV would probably kill a horse.

Even if it looked like he wrote for morphine, the nurse should have known not administer that much.

And just to further beat the dead horse--
Now that I think about it, your example's even more flawed. If he's ordering magnesium over the phone, he's talking to a nurse in L&D or postpartum, both of whom are VERY familiar with magnesium, and would in no way confuse this with morphine (particularly to the extent of calling the pharmacy to see if it is available). Magnesium is a drug with very specific, limited indications--none of which would be confused with morphine.

More likely scenario--your friend read the ubiquitous hospital document telling us all to write out morphine sulfate instead of MS, lest it be confused with magnesium sulfate, a mistake that I guarantee has never happened. He then made up an entertaining anecdote for his friends to bring up at cocktail parties (or message boards).

Sorry...this stuff just bugs me. The better study would be to see how many errors JCAHO (the regulatory agency overseeing hospitals) is causing by the ridiculous hoops they're making us jump through--particularly in the emergency department, where timely therapy is just a little important. It'd be different if any of them had spent a second in a hospital (besides their little regulatory visits)--the morphine/magnesium example is a perfect one in demonstrating their clinical ignorance.