Patient, protect thyself: Mistakes happen even at top-tier hospitals

Here are some tips from organizations such as the Joint Commission and the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, which is charged with improving quality and safety of healthcare, on how to reduce the risk that you or a loved one will experience a medical error.
The best way to help your caregivers avoid mistakes is to talk to them. Many medical errors are related to medications -- getting the wrong drug or the wrong dose. A 2006 report by the Institute of Medicine on medical errors calculated, based on national data, that a hospital patient is subject to one medication error per day, on average. Medications most likely to be associated with errors, the report found, were insulin, morphine, potassium chloride, heparin and warfarin.
If you are in the hospital and being given a new drug or dose, ask the nurse what it is or why the dosage has been changed. If you don't know why you are getting a medication, ask why.
The hospital may have a bar-coding system for medications that is meant to double-check by computer the patient's name and drug dose against what the doctor ordered. (Currently, only 11% of California hospitals are fully using bar-coding technology for administering drugs, according to a January study by the nonprofit California HealthCare Foundation.)
If you have a bar code on your patient wristband, be sure it's checked every time. Even if there's no bar code, the caregiver should check your name.
Source: Los Angeles Times, January 28, 2008