A new report by Consumers Union states that the California Department of Public Health has been slow to implement many key provisions of several patient safety laws passed since 2006 that are aimed at shining the public spotlight on medical errors and hospital-acquired infections and holding hospitals accountable for improving patient safety. According to the report, enforcement of the new laws is critical because an estimated 240,000 California patients develop infections in hospitals each year, resulting in 13,500 deaths per year at a cost of $3.1 billion. Medical errors kill as many as 10,000 Californians each year and injure 140,000.
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