Medication, Identification Errors Most Common Near Misses on Labor and Delivery

Near-miss events were reported in 0.69% of deliveries performed in 2010 in a large healthcare system, according to an article in the December 2012 American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology. In 2010, the system performed 203,708 deliveries in 104 hospitals in 21 states; 463 near misses were reported using the healthcare system’s electronic voluntary reporting system. The three most common types of near misses were medication error (33% of near misses), patient identification error (19%), and failure to obtain or delay in obtaining laboratory results (11%).