New legal protections for reporting patient errors under the Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act: a review of the medical literature and analysis.

OBJECTIVES: The Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act (PSQIA) of 2005, inspired by the Institute of Medicine's (IOM) 1999 report To Err Is Human, affords federal protections in exchange for error disclosures. However, the PSQIA is unlikely to be effective unless frontline providers are aware of its existence. In this study, we assessed the quantity of publications regarding this protection within the medical literature. METHODS: Four reviewers independently evaluated 2060 safety-related articles, identified through a PubMed database search, to determine whether they discussed actual (or proposed) national legal protections for voluntary reporting of medical errors. Using a reviewer method based on a standard Delphi consensus model, agreement was achieved if at least 3 of 4 reviewers agreed with the decision. RESULTS: Articles were separated into pre-IOM report (1990-1999) and post-IOM report (2000-2008) literature. No articles were determined to be "on topic" in the pre-IOM period (n = 624). Twenty-seven articles were considered "on topic" in the post-IOM period (n = 1436), constituting 1.8% of the period total (95% confidence interval, 1.2%-2.6%). Of the 27 on topic articles, 7 appeared in practice-related journals, whereas the remaining 20 were in journals with a health policy or health care administration focus. CONCLUSIONS: Few published studies were found in clinical journals describing the PSQIA. This raises serious concerns and indicates that physicians may not be aware of the new legal protections afforded for error disclosure. If the health care system is to realize the benefits of error reporting systems, greater education of physicians regarding their legal protections may be needed.

Injury risk in professional boxing.

OBJECTIVE: Although a popular endeavor, boxing has fallen under increased scrutiny because of its association with traumatic brain injury. However, few studies have investigated the overall epidemiology of boxing injuries from representative samples, and no study has ever documented the incidence of injuries in female boxers. This study is a review of professional boxing data from the state of Nevada from September 2001 through March 2003. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Medical and outcome data for all professional boxing matches occurring in Nevada between September 2001 and March 2003 (n = 524 matches) were analyzed on the basis of a pair-matched, case-control design. Cases were boxers who received an injury during the boxing matches. Boxers who were not injured served as control subjects. Both conditional and unconditional logistic regression models were used to assess risk factors for injury. RESULTS: The overall incidence rate of injury was 17.1 per 100 boxer-matches, or 3.4 per 100 boxer-rounds. Facial laceration accounted for 51% of all injuries, followed by hand injury (17%), eye injury (14%), and nose injury (5%). Male boxers were significantly more likely than female boxers to receive injuries (3.6 versus 1.2 per 100 boxer-rounds, P = 0.01). Male boxing matches also ended in knockouts and technical knockouts more often than did female matches (P < 0.001). The risk of injury for those who lost the matches was nearly twice the risk for the winners. Those who lost by knockout had double the risk of injury compared with those who lost by other means. Neither age nor weight was significantly associated with the risk of injury. CONCLUSIONS: The injury rate in professional boxing matches is high, particularly among male boxers. Superficial facial lacerations are the most common injury reported. Male boxers have a higher rate of knockout and technical knockouts than female boxers. Further research is necessary to determine the outcomes of injury, particularly the long-term neurologic outcome differences between sexes.