Minnesota hospitals and licensed surgery centers reported 341 medical errors in 2017, marking a marginal increase from the 336 errors tallied a year prior, according to the state health department's 14th annual report on adverse events published this month.
With the 2003 passage Adverse Health Events Reporting Law, Minnesota became the first state to publicly report medical errors. Since then, five additional states followed suit, according to a report from the StarTribune.
Here are five things to know.
1. The state's 14th annual report includes medical errors that occurred between Oct. 7, 2016, and Oct. 6, 2017. The errors contributed to 12 deaths and 103 debilitating injuries.
2. Of the 12 deaths, five were associated with falls, two were associated with a medical device, two involved the death of a newborn, one involved a maternal death, one involved a medication error and one was attributable to patient suicide.
3. The five most common medical errors were pressure ulcers (120), patient falls (82), wrong-site surgeries (36), retained objects (27) and biological sampling errors (26).
4. Forty-one percent of wrong-site surgeries occurred when physicians failed to physically mark the site of surgery prior to operation.
5. For the first time in six years, the annual report did not include a physical assault on staff or patient. However, the report did document three sexual assaults against patients.
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