Wrong Site, Wrong Patient
On rare occasions, a medical procedure is performed on the wrong body part of the body or on the wrong patient. These are called wrong-site and wrong-patient mistakes. Such errors occur hundreds of times each year across the country. It is not always required to report these mistakes, so not every instance is counted. In a small percentage of these cases, the patient files a lawsuit against the hospital. The medical community is trying to eliminate these errors but have had difficulty reducing their frequency. Philip Stahel et al. conducted a study on these mistakes and the lawsuits that follow. Costs to hospitals resulting from wrong-site and wrong-patient lawsuits were collected.