Four area hospitals are among those who reported adverse events last year to the Minnesota Department of Health.
The annual report was released today by the state Health Department.
This is the fifth year that Minnesota hospitals, ambulatory surgery centers and community behavioral health hospitals have been required to report so-called adverse events, ranging from wrong-site surgery to serious or fatal falls.
Appleton Area Health Services in Appleton and Meeker Memorial Hospital in Litchfield each reported one incident of a foreign object retained during surgery or other procedure. Neither incident resulted in death or disability.
The Litchfield hospital and Granite Falls Municipal Hospital each reported a serious disabil-ity related to a fall. Chippewa County-Montevideo Hospital reported one fatal event -- a patient suicide.
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For the second year in a row, Rice Memorial Hospital in Willmar had no adverse events that had to be reported. No reportable adverse events occurred either at the Willmar Surgery Cen-ter.
Due to new requirements that expand the types of injuries and adverse events that must be reported, the number of adverse events was up last year, increasing from 125 to 312. Eighteen deaths and 98 serious disabilities were reported.
