Report: Accidents/Errors Lead to 1 Death, 10 Serious Injuries at Hospital

ST. CLOUD - A report by the Minnesota Department of Health says accidents and errors led to one death and 10 serious injuries at St. Cloud Hospital during a one year period ending in October.

The 12th Adverse Health Events in Minnesota report says the death at St. Cloud Hospital was in regards to "The use or malfunction of a device in patient care". Hospital spokeswoman Jeanine Nistler says the death was due to the malfunction of a device and not due to staff user error.

St. Cloud Hospital reported 20 adverse health events, 10 of which involved serious injury, from October 2014-October 2015. This was an increase from the report a year before, when 15 adverse health events were reported.

The other adverse health events reported at the hospital include: four surgeries or invasive procedures on the wrong body part, three stage 3, 4 or unstageable pressure ulcers, two serious injuries from failure to follow up or communicate test results, one loss of an irreplaceable biological specimen, four serious injuries from falls while being cared for in a facility, two serious injuries from medication errors and one serious injury from an patient attempted suicide/self harm.

The report says St. Cloud Hospital had 98,404 surgeries/invasive procedures performed last year.

Minnesota law requires all hospitals and surgical centers to report whenever an adverse health event happens and to conduct a thorough analysis of the causes for the event.

"Patient awareness is a very important tool to improve safety, but it is important to keep these numbers in perspective. The events listed in this report represent a very small fraction of all the procedures and admissions at Minnesota hospitals and surgical centers," the report says.