Malpractice Study: Surgical ‘Never Events’ Occur at Least 4,000 Times Per Year in U.S.

Dec. 19, 2012 — After a cautious and rigorous analysis of national malpractice claims, Johns Hopkins patient safety researchers estimate that a surgeon in the United States leaves a foreign object such as a sponge or a towel inside a patient’s body after an operation 39 times a week, performs the wrong procedure on a patient 20 times a week and operates on the wrong body site 20 times a week.  The researchers, reporting online in the journal Surgery, say they estimate that 80,000 of these so-called “never events” occurred in American hospitals between 1990 and 2010 — and believe their estimates are likely on the low side.  Read more