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medpundit |
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Wednesday, May 07, 2003The Harvard survey of sick adults was conducted in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand. At least 750 persons were surveyed in each country. The United States had the highest portion reporting errors -- 28 percent -- and the United Kingdom the fewest, 18 percent. But in all five countries, those who went to more than two doctors complained of errors almost twice as much as those who went to just one or two physicians. ...''This is only 10 percent of patients,'' he said, ``but they're an expensive 10 percent.'' The survey showed that more than one in four -- 28 percent -- of those who see more than two doctors in the United States and Canada said they were given duplicate tests by different doctors. And roughly a quarter in all five countries said they received conflicting information from different doctors. One of the experts interviewed in the article suggests that paying for “case managers” to coordinate care would help prevent these sort of errors. You know, there are people out there who do this now. They’re called primary care physicians. But Florida has come up with unique plan to reduce medical errors: Last week, the Florida Legislature, attempting to cut down on medical errors, passed a bill ordering doctors to improve their handwriting, so that pharmacists and nurses could do a better job of reading prescriptions. Wonder what the penalties are for failing to comply? posted by Sydney on 5/07/2003 07:58:00 AM 0 comments 0 Comments: |
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