Patients use an internet technology to report when things go wrong.

BACKGROUND

As patients directly experience harm from adverse events, investigators have proposed patient-report to complement professional reporting of adverse events.

OBJECTIVE

To investigate how an automated health assessment system can be used to identify adverse events.

DESIGN AND SETTING

Internet survey responses from April 2003 to April 2005 involving communities and clinical practices across the USA.

PATIENTS

44,860 adults aged 19-69 years.

OUTCOME

Patient perceptions of adverse events experienced during the previous year. Independent legal review was also used to estimate how many patient-reports were serious enough to be potentially compensable.

RESULTS

Although patient reports of possible adverse events was low (1.4%), the percentage of adverse events was eight times higher for patients with the greatest burden of illness than for those with the least (3.4% vs 0.4%). Two expert malpractice attorneys agreed that 9% of the adverse events seemed to be serious.

CONCLUSIONS

PATIENTS will use internet technology to report their perceptions of health-related adverse events. Some of the patient-reported events reported will be serious.