Public deserves access to data on hospital errors

Our views

The Olympian • Published October 28, 2007

In 2000, the Legislature passed a law that said, in essence, when hospitals screw up, they must report those “adverse events” to the state Department of Health. In June 2006, the law was expanded to include additional categories of serious, preventable errors.

In the first 14 months of the law, according to the Spokesman Review newspaper in Spokane, hospitals reported 223 mistakes including:

• 23 operations on the wrong body part.

• 42 foreign objects left behind after surgery and other procedures.

• 6 deaths or serious disabilities from medication errors.

• 113 serious pressure ulcers.

Lawmakers recognized that the public has a right to know the track record of hospitals. Shining the light of public disclosure on the medical mistakes is one way to get hospitals to improve safety procedures and reduce the number of errors.

With their warts exposed to the light of day, the Washington State Hospital Association claimed the 2006 change in law prevents the state Department of Health from releasing the information. The department caved to the hospital association, stopped releasing the records and now awaits legal advice from Attorney General Rob McKenna.

Public outrage over the non-disclosure now has the hospital association backpedaling. The association’s revised position is that the state can release the information on medical errors as long as it’s accompanied by an explanation from the hospital on how the wrong body part was operated on or why doctors left surgical equipment behind in a patient.

Rep. Tom Campbell, R-Roy, a chiropractor and member of the House Health Care Committee, said the medical malpractice law cited by the association was not meant to shield hospital records. “That was not the intent of the Legislature. That was not the intent of the bill,” said Campbell. “The intent was to give the public the maximum information.”

Campbell said the hospital association has lost credibility with him and the Legislature over this issue. “It’s really quite despicable, and it certainly doesn’t serve the public very well.”

We agree.

The public has a right to know when serious mistakes are made that impact the life of hospital patients. Lawmakers must follow Campbell’s lead and make it clear that hospital-specific information on medical mistakes belongs in the hands of the public.