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For Release: November 19, 2009
To contact Julia Neily, R.N., M.S., M.P.H., call Andrew LaCasse at 802-295-9363, ext. 5424 or e-mail Andrew.LaCasse@va.gov
To contact Peter D. Mills, Ph.D., call David Corriveau at 603-653-0771 or e-mail david.a.corriveau@dartmouth.edu

DMS's Mills Contributes to VA Surgery Study

Peter D. Mills, Ph.D., an adjunct professor of psychiatry at Dartmouth Medical School (DMS), is a co-author of a new paper analyzing continued problems with surgical procedures inside and outside the operating rooms of the medical centers of the federal Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).

In the November 2009 issue of the American Medical Association's Archives of Surgery, the article's authors estimate that between five and 10 incorrect procedures occur daily at Veterans Health Adminstration (VHA) centers in the United States, some with devastating effects. Mills and lead author Judy Neily, R.N., M.P.H. - who both work at the VA Medical Center in White River Junction, Vt. - joined seven other investigators in reviewing errors at 130 VHA facilities between January 2001 and June 2006. The full report can be viewed here.

Overall, the researchers reviewed 342 reported events, including 212 "adverse events" (any surgical procedure performed unnecessarily, such as a procedure performed on the wrong patient or wrong site) and 130 close calls (in which a recognizable step toward an adverse event occurred but the patient did not undergo the unnecessary procedure). Of the adverse events, 108 (50.9 percent) occurred in an operating room and 104 (49.1 percent) occurred elsewhere. The authors point in particular to communication problems early in surgical procedures, and interventions such as a final "time-out" moment before incision. may occur too late to correct them.

Mills has taught psychiatry at DMS since 1991, and practiced at the White River VA - with which DMS is affiliated - since 1994.

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