The California Department of Public Health (CDPH) released a troubling report on the California hospitals, where the number of patient errors has increased at an alarming rate over a period of 10 months ending this May.

The errors include giving the wrong medication to some patients, performing unnecessary surgical procedures on others. Such error interventions resulted in substantial injuries to their patients.

The CDPH issued fines of tens of thousands of dollars for 10 hospitals where errors have been reported.

The adverse healthcare events are one of the leading causes of death in the United States. As their incidence grows, more and more patients have to suffer, and many of them become reluctant to coming to a hospital.

What’s even worse is that these adverse events shouldn’t happen in the first place, and according to the CDPH, they are completely preventable.

Under a new state law, all hospitals in California are required to report all incidents that resulted in injuries to their patients.

Among the total of 28 serious reportable events, hospitals should report artificial insemination errors, patient death of serious disability associated with medication error or with a hemolytic reaction due to the administration of ABO/HLA-incompatible blood ot blood products and even the unintended retention of a foreign object after surgery.

CDHP issues a series of fines for the facilities that failed to do their job. In one case, one medical facility failed to provide adequate hydration which lead to renal failure and the death of the patient, while other facility failed to monitor the resident’s safety and prevent injuries from falls, which resulted in the patient’s death.

Other facilities were fined for failing to identify the patient’s care needs and provide emergency care, which resulted in the patient’s death.

Unfortunately, the examples can continue, and the situation extends beyond the state of California. CDPH’s director Mike Horton said earlier this month that patient safety is their number one priority and that monitoring activities have intensified.

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