From The Orange County Register
Senator says there are not enough protections for whistleblowers to give “unvarnished, firsthand accounts” of what happens inside hospitals.
Ask the guy next door what the three leading causes of death in America are, and he will likely nail the first two: heart disease and cancer.
But for the third, “They’ll say something that’s so far off,” Sen. Barbara Boxer said Friday, speaking to reporters during a tour of Children’s Hospital of Orange County in Santa Ana.
The third cause: medical errors. Largely preventable, such hospital errors as infections, injuries from falls and bedsores are estimated to kill as many as 440,000 people per year – more than strokes and accidents combined.
CHOC is the third hospital the U.S. senator from California has visited this year to draw public attention to the deadly issue.
Boxer touted Obamacare for penalizing hospitals with high rates of patient complications, but said there are not enough protections in place for whistleblowers who should be encouraged, not retaliated against, to give “unvarnished, firsthand accounts” of what is happening inside hospitals.
In February, Boxer asked 283 hospitals in California to give her office information on how they are working to reduce medical errors. Twenty-six hospitals, including three in Orange County – Fountain Valley Regional Hospital and Medical Center, Los Alamitos Medical Center and Placentia-Linda Hospital – have not responded.
Boxer said she first heard about the high number of medical errors a couple of years ago while meeting Joe Kiani, the owner of an Irvine-based medical technology company, and Lenore Alexander, a Ventura County mother.
Alexander’s 11-year-old daughter, Leah, died 11 years ago in her hospital bed after receiving high dosages of painkillers following an elective surgery. Alexander maintains physicians never checked Leah’s pulse and said she believes her daughter might still be alive today had she been monitored.
“Her story broke my heart,” Boxer said.
Through his foundation, Patient Safety Movement, Kiani hosts an annual summit with health care providers, patients, medical technology companies and public policy officials to come up with strategies to reduce the number of preventable hospital deaths.
To participate, hospitals pledge to implement preventative measures and turn over data. CHOC, St. Joseph Hospital, Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian, Orange Coast Memorial and Chapman University School of Pharmacy have participated.
Kiani wants Congress to pass a law that would bar Medicare from reimbursing for procedures that accidentally led to a patient’s death, and said he believes hospitals should be mandated to provide quarterly updates on its number of fatal errors.
“I’m not a bigger fan of bigger government, believe me,” he said. “But in some areas, transparency and simple incentives, it could make a difference.”
Still, he added, “We’re not counting on the government.”
Contact the writer: jchandler@ocregister.com and @jennakchandler on Twitter
9 most common medical errors
- Adverse drug events, including medication errors, allergic reactions and overdoses
- Urinary tract infections from catheters
- Bloodstream infections from central lines
- Injuries from falls
- Obstetrical adverse events
- Bedsores
- Infection in the site of a surgical incision
- Blood clots
- Pneumonia from a ventilator
Source: Partnership for Patients
Penalties
For the first time, the federal government is poised to dock Medicare payments to hospitals with the high rates of patient complications.
Under the Affordable Care Act, the Department of Health and Human Services will measure how often Medicare patients suffered certain types of serious but potentially preventable complications, including: wounds that split open after surgeries, bed sores and broken hips from falls after surgeries. The measures also include two types of infections, those from germs that either enter the bloodstream via a central line tube or the bladder, kidneys, urethra or ureters via a catheter.
Patients who are insured in ways other than through Medicare Advantage-managed plans are not included in the rates.
The following Orange County hospitals are on a preliminary penalties list to be finalized in December:
- AHMC Anaheim Regional Medical Center, Anaheim
- Chapman Medical Center, Orange
- Coastal Communities Hospital, Santa Ana
- Fairview Developmental Center, Costa Mesa
- Rancho Los Amigos National Rehabilitation Center, Downey
- Saddleback Memorial Medical Center, Laguna Hills
- St. Joseph Hospital, Orange
- Western Medical Center, Santa Ana
Source: Department of Health and Human Services; Kaiser Health News
