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Massachusetts hospital accused of removing kidney from wrong patient

Hospital Safety Insider, August 11, 2016

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Massachusetts health authorities are investigating an allegation that a surgeon at St. Vincent Hospital in Worcester removed a kidney from the wrong patient, according to a report from WCVB-TV.

Surgery performed on the wrong patient is described as a "never event" by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality; in other words, an error that should never occur and one that indicates serious underlying safety problems. According to the report, one study found that such errors occur in approximately one in 112,000 surgical procedures, which means an individual hospital would have such an error every five to 10 years.

Also according to the report, hospital owner Tenet Health claims that the incident occurred because of a "patient misidentification that took place outside of our hospital and did not involve our employees." The report did not elaborate on how or where the mistaken identification took place.

Read more here.

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