 | Here at Seton Hall University Hospital our main goal is to ensure patient safety to our guest. Every year thousands of people die from medical error: 98,000 a year 1,885 a week 270 a day 12 every hour. Over all it is the FIFTH cause of death in the United States. More people die in a given year as a result of medical errors than from motor vehicle accidents (43,458), breast cancer (42,297), or AIDS (16,516). Our patient safety program focuses on three main areas: Infection, Medication and Surgery. Studies have shown that:
There are an estimated 1.7 million hospital-acquired infections each year which result in approximately 70,000 deaths. Wrong surgery sites occur about 40 times a week |
Stories that have inspired us: Sorrel King on Josie On February 22, 2001 Sorrel King lost her eighteen month old daughter, Josie King due to medical error. Little Josie was admitted into John Hopkins Hospital after she had suffered first and second degree burns from climbing into a hot bath. She spent ten days in the PICU (Pediatrics Intensive Care Unit) before she was sent down to the intermediate care floor with the expectations of a quick recovery. The next week, her central line was taken out. Sorrel noticed that every time Josie saw water she would scream for it, and during her bath, she would suck furiously on the sponge. Sorrel requested for Josie to been seen by various nurses and all these nurses reassured Sorrel that Josie was doing fine. It wasn't until Sorrel DEMANDED that Josie been seen by another doctor that the medical team realized that Josie was not fine. Josie's medical team arrived and gave her two shots of narcan. It was then that Josie was finally given something to drink. The head doctor gave the verbal orders that no narcotics were to be given to Josie. Sorrel noticed that the nurse the next morning seemed uneasy and in a hurry. At about 1:00pm a nurse walked in with a syringe of methadone. Worried, Sorrel told the nurse of the doctors orders but the nurse reassured her that everything was fine. Soon, little Josie's heart stopped and she was rushed back into the PICU. Two days later, Josie died of dehydration and misused narcotics. |
Dennis Quaid: Thomas Boone and Zoe Grace A short time after his twins were born, actor Dennis Quaid readmitted his children to the hospital for treatment of a staph infection. Each twin was given 10,000 units of heparin, twice that of an adult dose in order to flush out their IV tubes and prevent clotting. The correct does for babies being only 10 units. Quaid expressed that The huge dose basically turned their blood into water, and they began to bleed both internally and externally. At one point, blood squirted from his son's umbilical cord 6 feet to the wall. After 41 hours, the twin's blood was clotting normally and they thankfully made a full recovery. |
Willie King: In February 1995, a Tampa Bay, Florida surgeon mistakenly removed the wrong leg of 52 year old Willie King during an amputation procedure gone wrong. King, who acquired a diabetes-related circulatory disease was to have his right leg amputated below the knee. But due to a lack of communication and a series of mistakes, the surgeon mistakenly removed his left leg. It wasn't until mid-surgery that the team realized their mistaken and then, it was too late. As a result, King is forced to learn to walk with two artificial legs. |  |
 | Jesica Santillan: 17 year old Jesica Santillan died two weeks after receiving the hearts and lungs of a patient whose blood type did not match her own. Surgeons at Duke University Medical Center failed to check the compatibility before the surgery began. After a rare second transplant operation to attempt to rectify the error. The error sent Jesica into a coma-like state, and she died shortly after an attempt to switch the organs back out for the compatible ones. The incident was blamed on human error and the lack of safeguards to ensure a compatible organ. |
Ginny Harvey: Ginny Harvey who was admitted into a prominent Boston Hospital after she broke her ankle on a street side walk ended up losing the entire bottom half of her leg after acquiring staphylococcus 3 infection which developed into osteomyelitis in the hospital. For the next five years Harvey went through a series of painful surgeries before she finally decided that an amputation was the only way to save her life. |
