Erb's Palsy

Data taken from hospital administrative data in 994 hospitals across the United States depicts an unpleasant reality of postoperative care, surgical injuries and other complications in the hospitals. After the Institute of Medicine announced that anywhere from 44,000 to 98,000 people die from from medical malpractice mistakes, the Agency for Healthcare Research focused on the complications that can cause medical errors to occur.

Birth Injury - The trauma to a woman or child during vaginal childbirth without the use of forceps injured 51,223 patients. Although the external injuries may not cost the hospitals much more in care over the life of the patients' stay, the potential long-term damage to the child and mother could result. For example, brachial plexus and other injuries can stem from a difficult vaginal birthing process.

Post-surgery Sepsis - The most serious of complications investigated under the study, sepsis or bloodstream infections resulted in eleven extra days of care and an additional $57,727 per patient. The risk of death also drastically increases with sepsis, up 22%.

Surgical Wound Openings - The second most serious complication, surgical wounds result in a 10% higher death rate and an additional $40,323 in hospitalization costs.

The study covered about 18 complications. Some of the other incidences include medical objects left inside the patient and excessive bleeding post-surgery. The paper indicates some of the medical errors are unavoidable, but many of them are not.

The study was published in this month's Journal of the American Medical Association.