Review hints at scope of hospital-error plan in Pennsylvania

Philadelphia Inquirer, February 6, 2008

In 2006, 11 hospital patients in Southeastern Pennsylvania died after getting transfusions with the wrong blood type. An additional 40 died after medication errors, and four more died after being accidentally burned. Deaths such as these, which total 1,500, are a rough estimate of what Pennsylvania would initially find if it applied its new Medicaid policy on medical errors to all 708,657 hospital admissions in 2006 from Philadelphia, Bucks, Chester, Delaware and Montgomery Counties. Under the policy, Pennsylvania will stop paying hospitals for the added costs of care for Medicaid patients that result from serious, avoidable medical mistakes.