This is what emerges from the examination of 1286 sentences of the Court of Cassation (from 1995 to 2006) conducted by the University of Bari
8 out of 10 medical errors are due to inadequate or omitted performance. And in 34% the damage caused is neurological. This is what emerges from the examination of 1286 sentences of the Court of Cassation (from 1995 to 2006) conducted by the University of Bari, which shows that the most affected specialty is obstetrics (32%), followed by orthopedics (9.5%), general surgery (8.5%), anesthesia (7.5%) and emergency therapy (6.5%). The omitted performance often finds its cause in a "defensive" attitude on the part of the doctor, who, for fear of making a mistake, avoids intervening. But in doing so he makes a mistake. The Clinical Risk Management Project was carried out in Puglia. In this Region there is neither a monitoring system nor a regional network for the management of clinical risk: the initiative, within which it is desirable to coagulate all the Southern Regions, aims at an organic system for the detection of claims and sentinel events that occur in the units of the Regional Health Service. In this way it will be possible to promptly highlight critical issues and develop specific corrective actions. The goal is to increase the safety of patients and operators, improving the quality and efficiency of the Regional Health Service and reducing insurance costs. Just Puglia hosted, from 6 to 7 December in Bari, the conference "Risk management in Healthcare: risk management and prevention", with 500 members, to compare the best national experiences with local initiatives and to propose and raise awareness of the integrated project of Apulian clinical risk management. From the aforementioned study it can be seen that delayed performance (5%), incorrect prescription, transcription and administration of a drug (1.5%) are decidedly lower percentages than inadequate (43.2%) or omitted performance (39.7%). The number of claims has increased in 10 years from 9,484 in 1994 to 27,953 in 2004. The number of accidents reported against doctors has also increased from 3,154 in 1994 to 11,932 in 2004. The answer to these data lies in a change of mentality: only the awareness of the possibility of error by the individual doctor and by the entire system can lead to improvement. Source: SIMGNEWS no. 159-2007.
