The Utah Department of Health is committed to the goal of increasing patient safety in health care facilities. Studies cited in the Institute of Medicine report, To Err Is Human, estimate that between 44,000 and 98,000 Americans die each year as the result of medical errors, with national health care costs from preventable adverse events totaling between nine and fifteen billion dollars. Through a number of collaborative initiatives, UDOH is striving to better understand the nature and occurrence of adverse events in Utah and to implement interventions aimed at reducing the incidence of adverse events.
     
 
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C3 Correct Site Surgery Initiative

In the month of October, a consortium of health providers in the State of Utah will commit to a consensus built standard for correct site surgeries. Over the past 3 years the Utah Department of Health has been collecting data on wrong site surgeries. We have discovered that in practice, there has been up to 12 different ways (X marks the site, X means not here, happy faces, stickers, surgeon initials, patient initials, etc.) to mark a site, there is the lack of specificity in terms of digits, side, front or back; and the lack of correct patient verification has led to such errors as circumcisions on the wrong babies, wrong sided testicle removal, wrong sided hip incisions, wrong finger digit incisions, and wrong sided knee arthroscopy.

As you can see, from the above list this is a real problem in the State of Utah. The Utah Department of Health, the Utah Hospital Association, the Utah Medical Association and Health Insight have joined together to implement this consensus build set of standards on behalf of Utah citizens.

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Last updated on June 6, 2007 1:06 PM