New York City Hospitals Less Likely Than Others in State To Report Adverse Events

New York City hospitals are less likely than those located in the suburbs and surrounding areas to report preventable mistakes, adverse events and medication errors, according to a report released on Tuesday by the Office of the City Comptroller, the New York Times reports. The state's reporting system, the New York Patient Occurrence and Tracking System, has collected such data since 1998.

The report analyzed data from 2004 through 2006 and some additional data from 2007, and found that New York City's roughly 60 hospitals accounted for almost half of the patients statewide in 2006 but reported about 39 adverse incidents per 10,000 patient discharges, compared with about 70 per 10,000 in the northern suburbs and upstate and nearly 64 per 10,000 on Long Island. In addition, the report found that from 2004 through 2007, city hospitals rarely reported medication errors. For the three-year period, the city reported 37 medication errors that resulted in death, near death or permanent injury, with 22 hospitals, including four large hospitals, not reporting any medication errors during the time period. The disparities in incidents did not mean that hospitals were providing poorer care, but that they were less likely to report errors than other hospitals, according to the report. The size of the hospital and the type of procedures performed did not seem to explain the differences in reporting rates.

The report also found wide variation in adverse event reporting among the city hospitals: 17 reported no heart attacks unrelated to a cardiac procedure, while one hospital had more than 40; six hospitals reported two blood clots or acute pulmonary embolisms per 10,000 patient discharges while two others had more than 60 per 10,000; one major academic medical center reported 3.6 post-operative infections per 10,000 discharges and a similar hospital reported 32 per 10,000.

New York City and suburban and upstate hospitals had similar reporting rates for unexpected patient deaths, which might be more difficult to underreport, according to the Times. New York City hospitals from 2004 to 2006 filed 2.38 death reports per 10,000 discharges, compared with 2.23 on Long Island and 3.42 in northern suburbs. The report did not name individual hospitals but separately, the comptroller's office released a list of the 12 lowest reporters in the city based on 2006 data (Hartocollis, New York Times, 3/10).

Additional information about the report is available online.