West Des Moines, Iowa Personal Injury Blog

Medical mistakes claim hundreds of thousands of lives each year around the country, and many of these errors happen in operating rooms. Surgeons in Iowa work under incredible pressure, and even minor distractions like loud noises or negative thoughts can make a potentially deadly mistake 66 percent more likely. This was the conclusion reached by researchers from Columbia University after observing how a surgeon reacted to stress during operations.

The researchers issued the surgeon with a special shirt that measured electrical impulses and heart rate variations during surgical procedures. The surgeon wore the Hexoskin Smart Shirt under his scrubs as he performed 25 operations on 12 patients at Stanford Medical Center in California. Researchers also installed video recording equipment in the operating room so they could identify mistakes. The timing of the operating room errors were then compared to the surgeon's heart rate to see if they were stress-related.

When Iowa parents take their children to the doctor, they may not even consider that their kids could be at risk of a medical mistake. However, like all patients, children's health can be put at risk when medical professionals make errors. The results of these doctor errors can be significant, and they may happen for a number of reasons. While some medical mistakes come down to misdiagnoses or errors in judgment, others can be exacerbated by confusion stemming from the use of electronic health records (EHRs).

A recent study analyzed over 9,000 reports of medical errors related to pediatric patient safety at three different health care facilities between 2012 and 2017. The researchers found that over half of all recorded mistakes were related to medication and the use of EHRs. Researchers said that the user interfaces of these systems can be confusing. In addition, EHR systems often fail to issue any kind of alert if a medication dosage appears to be incorrect. Most of the errors related to incorrect dosages of medication given to children, especially overdoses.

Iowa readers may be interested to learn that Veracyte recently expanded an early access program that uses the Envisia Genomic Classifier test to screen patients for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, or IPF. The test is currently offered in 20 medical centers in 12 states, but it should be available nationwide sometime in 2019.

IPF and other interstitial lung diseases, or ILDs, are difficult and expensive to diagnose. A recent study by the Pulmonary Fibrosis Foundation discovered that 55 percent of patients with IPF or other ILDs are misdiagnosed one or more times. Further, these misdiagnoses often lead to treatment delays or improper treatments. For instance, around 20 percent of IPF patients have been prescribed systemic cortisol, which can produce harmful side effects in IPF patients.

Iowa only has a few hospitals that got the top grade in a recent set of hospital safety ratings.

The ratings were from Leapfrog. In the ratings, Leapfrog gave hospitals throughout the country, including 33 here in Iowa, letter grades for hospital safety.