Tubing misconnections, incompatible defibrillator pads, nurse fatigue and other safety concerns continue to harm patients nationwide, despite increasing attention to medical errors. Seemingly simple solutions could reduce these problems: different sizes or shapes of connectors for different kinds of medical tubing, universal defibrillator pads (or plugs) and limits on nurses’ working hours or their duties when working long hours. But obstacles abound: a lack of financial incentives among medical device companies to change tubing or defibrillators, the inability of government agencies and hospital oversight organizations to compel change and the complexity of the health-care system, which is struggling with many other patient-safety demands.
Judges’ Comments: This is a tough but even-handed and thoughtful series that uses a tragic error in a hometown hospital to smartly reveal the causes and consequences of medical errors. It is a model of how local health care reporters and editors can illuminate national issues for their readers.
See the contest questionnaire in which the reporter writes about how this story was written.
In this article, Wahlberg explains how he reported the series and offers tips for other reporters.