Patients use an internet technology to report when things go wrong.
BACKGROUND
As patients directly experience harm from adverse events, investigators have proposed patient-report to complement professional reporting of adverse events.


OBJECTIVE
To investigate how an automated health assessment system can be used to identify adverse events.


METHODS
Internet survey responses from April 2003 to April 2005 involving communities and clinical practices across the USA.


METHODS
44,860 adults aged 19-69 years.


RESULTS
Patient perceptions of adverse events experienced during the previous year. Independent legal review was also used to estimate how many patient-reports were serious enough to be potentially compensable.


RESULTS
Although patient reports of possible adverse events was low (1.4%), the percentage of adverse events was eight times higher for patients with the greatest burden of illness than for those with the least (3.4% vs 0.4%). Two expert malpractice attorneys agreed that 9% of the adverse events seemed to be serious.


CONCLUSIONS
PATIENTS will use internet technology to report their perceptions of health-related adverse events. Some of the patient-reported events reported will be serious.
Wasson
John H
JH
Dartmouth Medical School, Hanover, NH 03755, USA. john.h.wasson@dartmouth.edu
MacKenzie
Todd A
TA
Hall
Michael
M
D000328:Adult; D017281:Cost of Illness; D005260:Female; D019538:Health Care Surveys / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D007297:Inpatients / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D020407:Internet / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D008297:Male; D019300:Medical Errors / Q000145:classification / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D008875:Middle Aged; D010045:Outpatients / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D010358:Patient Participation; D010817:Physician-Patient Relations; D012308:Risk Management / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D012650:Self Disclosure; D014481:United States