Patients Listed Alive in Electronic Health Records Were Actually Deceased: Study

Hundreds of deceased patients are incorrectly listed as alive and receiving unnecessary medical interventions, according to a recent study. About one in five seriously ill patients’ records did not reflect their actual deceased status, researchers from the University of California at Los Angeles found. Instead, these ghosts-in-the-system overburdened health care workers with unnecessary prescription refills and strained already limited resources. With administrative inefficiencies already under heavy criticism, this study illuminates yet another way limited mortality data distorts an overtaxed health care system. Wasted Health Care Resources The findings were published in a JAMA Internal Medicine research letter by Dr. Neil Wenger, professor of medicine in the division of general internal medicine and health services research at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA....