These kind of mistakes do not happen under the government run VA system. The best book you will ever read from your library on heal care is the Book " The Best care Anywhere" by Phillip Longman. The book is only about 125 pages long and reads like a novel, I could not put it down once I started. Phillip Longman is a conservative who was shocked to find out after much research backed by facts and studies that the government run VA health care even beats the Mayo Clinic in many areas. As a bonus it provides the best care for the least amount of money and with the fewest mistakes. You will learn much about our broken health care system and how to fix it if you take the short time to read it. Congress should be required to read the book.

Does anyone remember the Minnesota Nurses complaining about short staffing. I DO. Give people unrealistic jobs and this is an outcome. One of many that could improve with proper staffing levels. Or at least, no more "open/unfilled" shifts.

Part of the problem is these places can charge unrealistic amounts of money and get away with highway robbery! And when they do have mistakes, nobody is held accountable. My dad had "fusion cage" surgery on his back in 1999 at Abbott hospital. The Low Back Institute. Well, he didn't really have "fusion cage" surgery. They cut him open, removed bone, and stitched him back up. They didn't do a darn thing! Still had immense back pain. Finally years later he went to a dr, and was checked out, that dr asked what was done on his back years ago, he told him, and that dr said, no, that wasn't done! There was nothing done! Called original dr, and he wouldn't answer phone calls, wouldn't return phone calls, nothing! What a joke! Don't think highly at all about how they aren't held accountable for their mistakes!

@Danielson: Yes, it's funny how that issue suddenly died once the nurses got what they wanted. I would take issue, however, with the notion that staffing shortages are responsible here. This is a systems problem, and having all the staff you could possible imagine will not rectify the problem if everyone gets bad preoperative information. Were I the patient featured in the picture, moreover, I'd be a bit concerned as the doctor appears to a scar (Bad aim?) on his left hand at the knuckle.

hardcider........while I have never read the book you describe I am quite skeptical regarding your claim that "these kind of mistakes don't happen under the government run va system". Maybe, just maybe, the reporting isn't quite as reliable. Maybe things are swept under the carpet a bit. I just googled 'va hospital mistreatment' and it came up with thousands of stories. While I don't believe for a second that all of them are factual, the sheer volume of complaints probably tells me the va system might have more problems than the author of your book claims. I would take Mayo any day of the week over the va system and I know other vets who would back me up on this.

@Danielson: Yes the nurses did scream and yell about staffing...and as soon as they were told they were getting x amount of money in a raise and retierment benefits, they stopped screaming about being under staffed...Also O.R. nurses are on a 1 to 1 ratio....does not get better than that anywhere in the hospital! @hardcider: Have you ever gotten care in a VA hospital? Ever wonder why the U of M send all their med students to "train" there? One of the last places on earth I would go for care..

While the headline about increased incidents naturally leads readers to believe that wrong surgeries are increasing, self-reporting on these events is a relatively recent occurrence. There was a time that this information wasn't reported. Clearly, everyone wants wrong surgeries, injuries, deaths, and "never events" to go away. But on an interim basis, patients have to be their own best advocate. Have an family member or friend accompany you to the hospital or surgery center. Ask questions. Make the surgeon tell you what procedure he's going to perform, and on what body part. Sounds silly, but if you have the wrong knee replaced, that simple question doesn't seem so silly.

The new nurse contract includes a a process to temporarily close a unit to admissions for a limited period of time. This can help prevent unsafe staffing. There are also processes to track unsafe staffing so much, much more than some of the poster narrow scope. Money??? Hourly rates of pay increases: 7/2010 0%. 7/2011 1%, 1/2012 .8%, 7/2012 2%.

A couple of years ago I heard about a program being tried to eliminate this sort of error. It completely eliminated all mistakes while it was being tested. It required everyone on the surgical team to read from a checklist that verified who the patient was and what the needed procedure was. The surgeons hated it because it cast doubt on their infallibility and it took a minute to 90 seconds more per procedure, and they begrudged that time. Many of them schedule as many surgeries as they possibly can for one day so they can work a minimal number of days per week, so the couple of minutes per could cost them another 4 or 5-figure bump. So as I remember the story from the radio, the procedure wasn't going to be implemented.

Maybe if a couple of these self-conceived demigods had their careers ended and their bank accounts emptied for refusing to take basic precautions to avoid causing harm to other human beings, they'd be more willing to use a little common sense and basic human decency.

Of course, one of the major driving factors forcing health care costs in the US to the highest in the world is that these men must be millionaire super-humans. And if they aren't, they must at least be treated as such. So they will continue to replace the wrong knee, because they mercilessly browbeat anyone who even hints they might be wrong about anything at any time.

Why blame nurses? Shouldn't surgeons be reading charts before they cut into a patient?