Health care worker fatigue contributed to more than 1,600 incidents reported through the Pennsylvania Patient Safety Reporting System (PA-PSRS), with 37 considered harmful and four resulting in patient deaths, according the Pennsylvania Patient Safety Authority. An article released Thursday from the PPSA's June advisory examined data from June 2004 to August 2013, and found there were 1,601 events reported in which health care worker fatigue was cited as a factor. Medication errors were most common, making up 62.1 percent of the errors, the article said. Errors related to a procedure, treatment or test was the next most common, at 26 percent.
