My lede:

November marked a decade since the release of a seminal Institute of Medicine report that cited research estimating as many as 98,000 Americans die annually from preventable medical errors.

The report, “To Err is Human,” attracted a flurry of media attention and political scrutiny — as well as criticism from physicians who said the estimate was too high. It also helped catalyze the modern patient safety movement, but to what end?

A report issued in December in the policy journal Health Affairs, said patient safety efforts since 1999 deserve a B-minus grade, compared with a C-plus for 2004.

The report cited improvements in error reporting and quality initiatives led by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the Joint Commission and others. But, the report said, safety gains from health information technology have largely failed to materialize due to slow take-up, unintended consequences and implementation problems.

The whole shebang.

My lede:

Not every patient in need of a lifesaving bone marrow transplant can find a matching donor. So a handful of cancer patients, a bone marrow transplant physician and an online group are suing the Justice Dept. to try to increase the odds.

The lawsuit, filed in October against U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder in his official capacity, argues that the 1984 National Organ Transplant Act violates the Constitution’s 14th Amendment guarantee of equal protection under the law. The law bans the sale of organs and threatens a prison sentence of up to five years for anyone convicted of breaking it.

The law is wrong, the plaintiffs say, because it treats bone marrow — a renewable bodily resource — the same way it treats solid organs such as lungs and eyes. Patients who donate blood, sperm and ova can be compensated legally. The group argues that financial incentives for bone marrow could help reduce the shortage for transplants.

The whole shebang.

My lede:

Communication failures such as poor handoff of critical information between surgical team members are the leading cause of surgeries involving the wrong patient, the wrong side, the wrong body part, the wrong implant or the wrong procedure.

Poor communication was the cause of one in five adverse events reported to the Veterans Health Administration system from 2001 to 2006, according to a study published in November’s Archives of Surgery. Problems during the perioperative timeout process were a root cause of errors more than 15% of the time.

The whole shebang.

My lede:

Only 44% of hospital boards say quality is among the top two criteria they use to evaluate their chief executives, according to a survey of 722 board chairs.

The survey results, published online Nov. 6 in Health Affairs, also found a strong link between the importance hospital leaders placed on quality improvement and their hospitals’ performance on Medicare and Joint Commission care metrics.

The whole shebang.