Hospital mistakes going public in 2008- New Illinois law requires event reporting by hospitals and surgery centers

Under a law that takes effect Jan. 1, 2008, Illinois hospitals must publicly report serious mistakes, known as "never events". (Chicago Sun Times, link to story no longer available)

Never events include:

• "Patient death or serious disability associated with a hemolytic reaction due to the administration of ABO-incompatible blood or blood products."
• "Patient death or serious disability associated with the use of contaminated drugs, devices, or biologics provided by the health care facility when the contamination is the result of generally detectable contaminants in drugs, devices, or biologics regardless of the source of the contamination or the product."

Adverse event reports must be filed within 30 days of discovery. Root cause analysis and corrective action plans must be filed within 90 days of first report.

The Illinois State Department of Health will publish annual report which will include adverse events for each institution.

The final system is set to be fully operational January 1, 2008. A six-month test period is scheduled to be completed by July 1, 2007.

The full act, Illinois Public Act 094-0242 may be viewed at the link below. Article 10 is the adverse events reporting law:
http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/publicacts/94/094-0242.htm