Should hospitals be allowed to make mistakes? This seems to be the question on mind in a recent New York Times article about University Hospital in Syracuse, New York. University Hospital is reportedly "not a good hospital. In fact, in late 2006 a state commission recommended that it be scaled back and merged with another hospital."

The scale-back and merge suggestions didn't follow through however, despite the fact that the evidence was strongly against University Hospital. Its patients were three times as likely to develop infections stemming from hospitals as were patients at the average New York hospital, according to 2006 statistics.

Patients need to be able to trust their hospitals. They need to be able to walk into the operating room, emergency room and physicians' offices knowing that they are going to be receiving the best care from their doctors. How can hospitals, especially ones that are failing, assure this trust?

One avenue a hospital can take, as suggested by the article, is applying for accreditation by the Joint Commission. Another avenue a hospital can take is outsourcing to an independent review organization, such as AllMed, to ensure that it is making the right decisions for its patients, rather than its doctors. Check our AllMed to learn about best practices, common errors and how AllMed can help hospitals reach standards of care in order to avoid the snowballing errors of University Hospital.

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