29 Events that Should Never Occur

The Minnesota Department of Health requires Minnesota hospitals to report 29 different adverse events that should never occur in hospitals. These reportable events are not an exclusive list of all acts of medical malpractice in the hospital, but are events that are patently the result of malpractice and require reporting. These events include:

Surgical Events:

1. Surgery on wrong body part

2. Surgery performed on wrong patient

3. Wrong surgery on the right patient

4. Leaving foreign object in patient after surgery

5. Death during or immediately after localized surgery that does not involve systemic disruption

Product or Device Events:

6. Patient death or serious injury due to use of contaminated drugs, devices or biologics

7. Patient death or serious injury from improper use of device

8. Patient death from intravascular air embolism except for cases involving certain neurosurgery procedures with inherent increased risk of air embolism

Patient Protection Events:

9. Discharging patient without decisionmaking capacity to wrong person

10. Patient death or serious injury due to disappearance of patient without decisionmaking capacity

11. Patient death or serious injury from suicide or suicide attempt in hospital, except for patients who die or have serious injury from self-inflicted injury prior to admission

Care Management Events:

12. Patient death or serious injury due to medication error

13. Patient death or serious injury due to unsafe administration of blood or blood products

14. Maternal death or serious injury after delivery in low risk pregnancy

15. Death or serious injury of neonate associated with labor and delivery during low risk pregnancy

16. Stage 3 or 4 ulcers that patients acquire after admission to facility, except for patients that had stage 2 ulcers documented at time of admission that progress to stage 3 ulcers

17. Artificial insemination with wrong donor sperm or wrong egg

18. Patient death or serious injury from fall while in facility

19. Irretrievable loss of biological specimen

20. Patient death or serious injury from failure to follow up or communicate laboratory, pathology, or radiology results

Environmental Events:

21. Patient death or serious injury from electric shock, except planned events including electric countershock

22. Delivery of wrong gas or a toxic substance to the patient in a gas line, such as an oxygen line

23. Patient death or serious injury from burn suffered in facility

24. Patient death or serious injury from use of or lack of restraints or bedrails

Potential Criminal Events:

25. Care by person impersonating a healthcare provider

26. Abduction of patient