Medical errors can cover a wide variety of situations. The wrong medication dose could be given to a patient, or a nick from a scalpel during surgery could cause internal bleeding or neurological injury. Surprisingly, the majority of errors take place in connection with visits to a physician’s office rather than in the context of hospital stays. However, the number of such errors annually makes this the third leading cause of death in the nation. New York healthcare professionals may need to consider some important issues related to medical errors in order to turn the statistical tide.

Workers in New York hospitals might make errors because of confusion about patient identities. When the ECRI Institute analyzed 7,613 wrong-patient incidents voluntarily supplied by 181 health care organizations around the country, patient identification errors took place at all levels, including among physicians, nurses, transporters, lab technicians and pharmacists.