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New Technology Designed to Help Reduce Medical Errors

More Americans Die or are Injured from Medical Errors Each Year Than From Highway Accidents, Breast Cancer and AIDS Combined

Thursday, June 16, 2005

Imagine finding out your loved one's death was the result of a medical error at your local hospital. According to a recent report in the Journal of the American Medical Association, 98,000 people die each year from unnecessary medical errors. That's more than the number of people hurt or killed from highway accidents, breast cancer and AIDS combined.

New technology designed to reduce medical errors

Now doctors at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center are working on a new teaching tool - a computer program intended to reduce medical errors when reading children's X-rays. The reason: studies show up to one in eight X-rays are misinterpreted by doctors - possibly putting patients in danger.

The teaching tool is an interactive, web-based technology focused on normal and abnormal X-rays.

How it works

Doctors in training read X-rays, click to identify possible problem areas and the computer provides feedback and instructions based on the answers. Doctors hope if the teaching tool is successful in reducing medical errors in the field of radiology, that the tool can then be applied to other areas of medicine nationwide.

Learn more about the Grey Zone modules and how they help reduce medical errors.

Learn more about the Department of Radiology and Medical Imaging at Cincinnati Children's.

Attention TV News Reporters, Editors and Producers

On Friday afternoon, June 17; Monday afternoon, June 20 and Wednesday, June 22, a Radiology VNR will be available and fed in rotation at the satellite coordinates C BAND: IA (formerly Telstar) 5 (C) /TRANSPONDER 19 /AUDIO 6.2 & 6.8; DL: 4080 (V).

This satellite feed contains B-Roll:

• Hospital footage: gurneys, operating rooms
• Footage of people on crowded street
• Resident and doctors looking at web site with patients, studying charts
• Resident on web site, close-up of screen
• Family in hospital talking with doctor

SOT:

• Mark Halsted, MD, Chief, Radiology Informatics Research Core, Cincinnati Children's
• Jack Vo, MD, Clinical Pediatric Radiology Fellow, Cincinnati Children's

Produced for Cincinnati Children's

For story information, contact: Amy Reyes, amy.reyes@cchmc.org, 513-636-9684.

For technical information, contact: Medialink 212-682-8300.

This feed is free for unrestricted use. A hard copy can be obtained by contacting Medialink at 212-812-7040.