The chief medical officer for Minnesota’s southeast region of Mayo Clinic Health System said the hospital system takes the results of the state’s annual Adverse Health Events report seriously.

The Health Department report, released Friday, requires hospitals, surgery centers and similar places throughout the state to report whenever mistakes occur. It calls these mistakes “adverse health events.”

The goal of the adverse reporting system is to use data to identify and implement best practices that improve patient safety. A total of 30 states track adverse events, but Minnesota is one of only five states to publicly report events at a facility level.

In the report, Mayo Clinic Health System in Albert Lea was listed as having one medication error that resulted in serious injury.

Reinold Plate, chief medical officer for the southeast Minnesota region, said he could not provide additional details about the incident but noted that after an error takes place, the organization analyzes the incident to discover how and why it took place.

Then it reviews the process in detail to make sure it is error-free and then makes sure to share what was learned with the other hospitals within the organization.

“Our highest priority is really the safety and care of our patients,” Plate said. “These things impact the lives of real people and real families.”

He said the organization as a whole had less adverse health events compared to the previous year, but it is continually striving to improve.

“Needless to say we’d like that to be zero every year,” he said.

On the state level, in 2015, hospitals made progress on reducing falls and surgical errors related to not removing all the materials involved in surgeries.

During the October 2014 to October 2015 reporting period, there were 67 cases of falls associated with serious injury or death, according to a news release. That total was the lowest ever reported to the system.

Overall, serious injuries and deaths were similar to last year’s report. Minnesota hospitals and surgical centers reported 316 adverse health events, including 93 serious injuries and 16 deaths. This was similar to the previous year’s 98 serious injuries and 13 deaths.

Hospitals and surgical centers reported 22 cases of retained foreign objects after surgery, as opposed to 33 in the previous year, the release stated.

This continues a downward trend following years of intense focus by hospitals and surgical centers to train staff and implement procedures to account for all objects before the end of a surgery.