Rep. TOM CAMPBELL (R-Roy)
2nd LEGISLATIVE DISTRICT
Olympia office: 334 John L. O'Brien Building
PO Box 40600 Olympia, WA 98504-0600
Office: (360) 786-7912

For immediate release: Oct 24, 2007

Campbell stands ground on hospital error disclosures

Olympia -- After several days of flurry over the requirement of hospitals to report details of serious medical errors, Rep. Tom Campbell said the Washington State Hospital Association is backing away from their position that they don’t have to report such errors.

Campbell, (R-Roy) a Chiropractor by profession, expressed his anger with the position of the hospital association in a number of newspaper and television stories exposing the association’s decision that the state Department of Health must stop releasing hospital-specific adverse-event statistics.           

The hospital association said disclosing the errors punished the hospitals unfairly without improving patient care. They contend legislation passed last year forbids release of such records.

The public response in the past few days, however, seems to have prompted the hospital association to reconsider its position. “Our phone was ringing off the hook,” a Hospital Association spokeswoman told the Spokesman-Review. “There’s been a lot of reaction to this, more than we expected.”                        

Serious errors ranging from operating on the wrong body part (21 such occurrences in the past year) to leaving objects behind after surgery (34 such occurrences in the past year)                   

“People are entitled to know which hospital has the best and the worst record of patient care,” Campbell said. “For the association to say ‘people wouldn’t understand’ is arrogant; it’s just a condescending slap in the face.”

In addition to the numbers on surgeries on wrong body parts and foreign objects left behind over the past year, hospitals across the state have reported eight cases of patients receiving the wrong surgical procedure and six cases of death or disability from medication errors. 

The state Dept. of Health said it is seeking a formal opinion from state Attorney General Rob McKenna. And Campbell said he will also plan to offer new legislation in the 2008 session to emphasize the requirement of the department to disclose the information.

The Washington State Legislature convenes for a 60-day session on January, 14, 2008.

#####

Contact: Rep. Tom Campbell at (360) 786-7912 or campbell.tom@leg.wa.gov