YOUR COVERAGE of a groundbreaking study analyzing the clinical and economic benefits of computerized physician order entry missed the most important point ("1 in 10 patients gets drug error," Page A1, Feb. 14).
The report, applauded by providers, insurers, and state and business leaders for providing a pathway to saving lives and money, was made possible through the voluntary participation of six community hospitals in Massachusetts. The goal was to find safer ways to deliver care and to measure the efficacy of electronic tools, such as a computerized prescription ordering system. The results were dramatic. Not only could the system improve quality and safety, but it could quickly pay for itself - good news at a time when many hospitals face limited access to capital investment money.
However, the article focused primarily on what these six hospitals were doing wrong, rather than acknowledging them for providing a road map to improvement. Further, the article creates a comparison between community hospital performance and the performance of teaching hospitals. The authors of the study certainly did not intend for comparisons like these to be made or for the public to draw unnecessary negative conclusions about the care patients are receiving at community hospitals in Massachusetts.
The point is that tools such as the computerized system are critical to making significant inroads on patient safety.
LYNN NICHOLAS
President and CEO, Massachusetts Hospital Association
Burlington
THE ARTICLE "1 in 10 patients gets drug error" is shocking. Adding insult to all these injuries is the fact that patients pay for these errors. Health insurers pay the hospitals as billed, and insurers build in all the costs when they set our insurance premiums.
The most powerful thing we can do as patients is to urge our insurers not to pay for hospital errors that we suffer. Insurers could withhold payment to the hospital, which would send the hospital the right message. Otherwise, given the reimbursement system, hospitals could benefit financially for additional days of hospital care that were incurred because of an error. (This sounds insane, and it is, as I know all too well from my work in patient safety.)
Consumers must demand safer hospital care. Strangely, this could be the best way to get it.
KEN FARBSTEIN
Needham
