About TAPS

The Goal of Texas Advocates for Patient Safety (TAPS) is to make health care safer for Texans. TAPS will focus on making hospital and physician practices the trusted institutions Texans believe they are today.

We will do this by working to:

• Improve public access to information about the safety histories of hospitals and doctors.
• Support legislation that holds hospitals and physicians accountable to an acceptable level of care.
• Measure and report on health care quality in Texas.

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Why the Need?

Preventable medical errors are a leading cause of injury and death in the United States, killing an estimated 44,000 to 98,000 Americans each year. More people die in a given year as a result of medical errors than from motor vehicle accidents (43,458), breast cancer (42,297), or AIDS (16,516), according to the National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine (IOM).

Conditions are worsening, according to the latest HealthGrades review of hospital safety data released in April 2006. In fact, according to the report:

• Patient deaths from preventable medical error are twice as high as originally estimated by the IOM.
• Patient safety incidents are on the rise (in millions, 1.14 in 2002, 1.18 in 2003 and 1.24 in 2004, an overall 9% increase.)
• These incidents represented 304,702 deaths, 250,246 of which were deemed potentially preventable (82%).

Put into perspective:

"There is little evidence that patient safety has improved in the last five years,' said Dr. Samantha Collier, vice president of medical affairs at HealthGrades, which publishes rankings of hospitals and doctors. 'The equivalent of 390 jumbo jets full of people are dying each year due to likely preventable, in-hospital medical errors, making this one of the leading killers in the US."
- The Boston Globe, July 27, 2004

Preventable Medical Errors include:

• Medication errors
• Hospital-Acquired infections
• Actions by impaired or poorly trained physicians
• Adverse outcomes from flawed systems (wrong leg amputated, etc)

And arise from:

• Reluctance by providers to voluntarily report incidents
• Lack of public pressure to improve
• Secrecy of the health care culture
• Weak licensing board
• Absence of effective public oversight

For example, in 2003 the Texas legislature created the Office Of Patient Safety as part of tort reform. The office was never funded and eventually was abolished.

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Is happening because:

Healthcare is not held to the same safety or accountability standards as other public and private services.

• Aviation safety is tracked, monitored and enforced through the FAA
• Power and fuel transmission safety is regulated at both state and federal levels
• Financial institutions must submit to annual audits
• TV and radio standards are regulated by the FCC

All of these areas are strictly regulated for the protection of the American people, but healthcare safety is not.

Some States are Taking Action:

In April 2006, The Oregon Patient Safety Commission came to an agreement with 41 hospitals in the state to create a new, voluntary system to report "serious adverse events." The new system will allow physicians and other helath care workers to confidenialy and voluntarily report medical and hospital errors. Full Story

In 2003, Minnesota became the first state in the nation to adopt mandatory hospital reporting of the National Quality Forum's (NQF) 27 adverse events. Not surprisingly, Minnesota hospitals have been deemed the safest in the nation, according to the 2006 Healthgrades report.

It is clear that appropriate levels of government oversight and increased public scrutiny can improve health care safety. Therefore, TAPS is taking action to

• Raise public awareness of the critical issue of preventable medical errors to compel Texas providers to support safety measures
• Advocate for greater state oversight of health care safety through re-creation and funding of an independent Texas Office of Patient Safety.
• Publish regular reports for the public and the legislature about the safety of Texas physicians and hospitals.
• Assist Texas consumers in accessing hospital and doctor safety information.

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What you can do:

Help us fund the Center for Patient Safety within the Texas office of the not-for-profit consumer organization Public Citizen. The Center will:

• Publish quarterly reports on Texas worst doctors using the State Board of Medical Examiners (SBME) data;
• Advocate for rule changes to protect patients;
• Assist injured patients and/or their families in filing complaints;
• Review hospital data and put out quarterly reports on hospital safety;
• Advocate for a State Office of Patient Safety at the legislature

Volunteer to share your story of hospital or physician error by visiting our Patient Stories page.

Texas Advocates for Patient Safety is a project of the Franklin Foundation, Dallas, Texas, established in the name of Joan Franklin, beloved mother and grandmother, who died in 2000 as the result of preventable medical error.