Hospital accidentally declares 200 patients dead

An Australian hospital apologized "unreservedly" on Thursday after sending out notices to the doctors of more than 200 patients that mistakenly said their patients had died, when in fact they had been discharged.

The error by Austin Hospital in Melbourne was spotted within hours and the doctors were contacted, but not before at least one had called a family member to express condolences, the Herald Sun newspaper reported.

Austin Health, which runs the hospital, said the notices - which were sent on July 30 - were a result of "human error" after changes to a death notification template were saved to the standard discharge template.

"On recognizing the error on Wednesday morning, Austin Hospital immediately contacted all GP (general practitioner) clinics affected," Austin Health spokeswoman Taryn Sheehy said in a statement.

"We apologized unreservedly to affected clinics who, for the most part, were very understanding about the error."

Sheehy added that patient care was not affected, but the president of the Australian Medical Association's Victoria state branch, Tony Bartone, said the blunder was "unacceptable".

"IT issues must not undermine patient care or trust in the Victorian healthcare system," he said in a statement.

(China Daily 08/15/2014 page11)