Utah probes 90,000 medical errors

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Utah probes 90,000 medical errors

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - State officials began a push for more reporting of

medical

information by releasing a report Wednesday that listed 90,000 mistakes

made in treating Utah

hospital patients over five years. The most common reported problems involved

complications

during surgery or other procedures, which accounted for 60,251 of the incidents.

About 6% of

patients discharged from Utah hospitals between 1995 and 1999 suffered

such complications,

the report said. Nearly half of all problems involved adverse reactions

from medicines. The

report listed only mistakes that hospitals reported voluntarily. There

is no way to know how

many mistakes hospitals actually made because they are not required to

report them, said

, deputy director of the state health department.