UF physician to study errors in emergency medicine

The National Patient Safety Foundation has awarded a University of Florida physician $100,000 to study errors in hospital emergency departments.

During the next 22 months, Dr. Robert Wears, a professor of emergency medicine based at the UF Health Science Center’s Jacksonville campus, will examine how and why errors occur. The study will be conducted at Shands Jacksonville and the University of Michigan Medical Center in Ann Arbor.

A National Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Medicine report identified emergency departments as high-risk areas for mistakes as compared to most other areas of the hospital, likely because of their fast-paced, chaotic nature. Little research has been done, however.

The number of emergency department visits is so high – 100 million annually in the United States – that even a low incidence of mistake-related injuries could be of great significance. A better understanding of why mistakes occur could help prevent future errors and provide substantial benefit to the public.

The federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality also awarded Wears $44,000 to host a fall conference on patient safety in health-care organizations. The aim of the conference, to be held at the University of Michigan in November, is to identify the effects that high-level management and organizational factors have on safety issues so that improvements can be made.