New York patients may be interested in the results of a study that found that men and women encounter different safety issues in medical situations. For example, women are more likely to have adverse reactions to drugs that they have been administered, ranging from rashes to low blood pressure to changes in their mental state. Men are more likely to get abrasions and cuts.

Read more: Study shows different medical errors for men, women

Medical errors can cover a wide variety of situations. The wrong medication dose could be given to a patient, or a nick from a scalpel during surgery could cause internal bleeding or neurological injury. Surprisingly, the majority of errors take place in connection with visits to a physician's office rather than in the context of hospital stays. However, the number of such errors annually makes this the third leading cause of death in the nation. New York healthcare professionals may need to consider some important issues related to medical errors in order to turn the statistical tide.

Read more: Medical error as a cause of excessive deaths

Workers in New York hospitals might make errors because of confusion about patient identities. When the ECRI Institute analyzed 7,613 wrong-patient incidents voluntarily supplied by 181 health care organizations around the country, patient identification errors took place at all levels, including among physicians, nurses, transporters, lab technicians and pharmacists.

Read more: Possibility of mixing up patient identities too high

Several hundred thousand New Yorkers head to emergency rooms every year with the expectation of getting better from treatment. Unfortunately, medical errors sometimes happen in emergency room settings, resulting in permanent injuries to or the deaths of some patients. If you have been harmed by medical mistakes that happened in the emergency room, you may be able to recover damages for compensation of your losses.

Read more: Medical errors in the emergency room

Patients in New York may be less likely to suffer from medical malpractice related to shift changes if more hospitals begin to adopt the technology currently in use at Brigham and Women's Hospital. According to a research letter that appeared in JAMA on Aug. 1, an electronic patient record is a useful tool in reducing errors.

Read more: New tool for reducing shift-change errors in hospitals

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