A recent report from the inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services says that 86 percent of all hospital errors go unreported by hospital employees. Unreported errors included overdoses and wrong medications, bedsores and hospital-acquired infections and even medical errors resulting in patient death.

Although hospitals are legally required to report and then analyze medical errors if they want to be eligible to bill Medicare or Medicaid for services, the HHS study found very little oversight of hospital error-tracking records by organizations that inspect hospitals. It also found that hospital employees often did not recognize when a medical error had harmed a patient and should have been reported.

Investigators found that 61 percent of unreported negative medical errors were not recognized by staff as errors. The other 25 percent of unreported errors should have been reported but weren't, for no identified reason. Very serious harmful events were no more likely to be reported than smaller errors.

Forty four (44) percent of the errors were preventable, but in order to prevent them in the future hospitals need to examine how the medical errors occurred so staff can create procedures or conduct training to avoid them.

HHS is planning to create a list of adverse events so hospital staff know what does and does not need to be reported.

Source: ABC News "Hospital Errors Often Unreported," by January 6, 2012.