Research suggests that counterfactuals (i.e., thoughts of how things might have been different) play an important role in determining the perceived cause of a target outcome. Results from 3 scenario studies indicate that counterfactual content overlapped primarily with thoughts of how an outcome might have been prevented (preventability ascriptions) rather than with thoughts of how it might hav...

OBJECTIVE To determine the proportion of preventable hospital-acquired bloodstream infections (HA-BSIs), the authors prospectively examined consecutive cases in a large university hospital over an 18-month period. PATIENTS AND METHODS Medical charts were assessed with the physician in charge of the patient within 4 days after HA-BSI diagnosis to determine whether the infection was heal...

OBJECTIVE To identify and quantify current deficiencies in primary and secondary stroke prevention, as well as potential gains from optimal employment of thrombolysis. DESIGN, PARTICIPANTS AND SETTING Observational study of 259 consecutive patients admitted to a tertiary hospital stroke unit from 24 January 2006 to 10 January 2007, with retrospective assessment of prestroke risk factors and t...

OBJECTIVE To determine the incidence of adverse drug events (ADEs) and assess their severity and preventability. DESIGN A prospective cohort study. SETTING A 900-bed tertiary academic hospital. PARTICIPANTS A total of 977 patients admitted to two medical, one surgical and two intensive care units over four months. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES The primary outcomes were the incidence of ADEs, pr...

BACKGROUND Identification of potentially preventable readmissions is typically accomplished through manual review or automated classification. Little is known about the concordance of these methods. METHODS We manually reviewed 459 30-day, all-cause readmissions at 18 Kaiser Permanente Northern California hospitals, determining potential preventability through a four-step manual review proces...

BACKGROUND The Victorian Audit of Surgical Mortality (VASM) seeks to peer-review all deaths associated with surgical care. This study aimed to examine the mortalities that were determined by the assessor to be potentially preventable, and identify the clinical factors associated with these cases. The assessment of preventability of death and its relationship to management issues at different st...