February 22, 2000

Pres Clinton will order all hospitals in US to take steps to reduce medical errors that kill tens of thousands of people each year; will urge states to require reporting of such errors; will call for nationwide system of reporting medical errors, somewhat like system used by airlines to report aviation safety hazards; will pressure states to adopt requirements within three years; will reportedly endorse all recommendations by National Academy of Sciences in recent report on medical errors which set goal of reducing mistakes by 50 percent over five years; will also ask Congress for $20 million to create Center for Quality Improvement in Patient Safety, as part of federal Agency for Health Care Research and Quality in Department of Health and Human Services; vehement opposition to mandatory reporting of errors by American Medical Assn and American Hospital Assn, and recommendations by Clinton's advisers that administration move cautiously on issue, discussed (M)

Actress Julie Harris, soprano Renee Fleming and pianist Helen Yorke join in concert tribute to Emily Dickinson, using Dickinson's words throughout, Alice Tully Hall; photo; Paul Griffiths review (M)

Stroganoff family's art treasures, including icons, manuscripts, antiquities, furniture, and old master paintings, are on view at Portland (Ore) Art Museum; exhibition is drawn from various institutions in Russia and the West; Baroness Helene de Ludinghausen, last of Stroganoffs, comments; photos (L)

Physicists confront fundamental paradox of quantum mechanics: why the laws that apply so precisely to subatomic realm do not appear to carry over into domain of everyday things; some physicists believe they are coming closer to an answer with phenomenon called decoherence, in which particles themselves constantly 'observe' one another, eliminating quantum fuzziness and yielding familiar world of solid objects (M)

Representatives of Boeing Co and 17,000 engineers and technical workers represented by Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace union are expected to meet separately with federal mediators this week amid signs that tensions between two groups is escalating; workers walked off their jobs Feb 9 after contract negotiations broke down over wages and health care coverage (M)