Preventable Medical Mistakes: A National Nightmare
The number of preventable medical mistakes that occur each year is climbing, yet health care reform plans do not include mandatory error reporting by doctors and hospitals.


January 06, 2010 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Preventable Medical Mistakes: A National Nightmare

Article provided by Knapp & Roberts
Visit us at www.krattorneysmalpractice.com

Ten years ago, the Institute of Medicine shook the health care and insurance industries with its report, "To Err is Human: Building a Safer Health System." The report focused media and health care industry attention on medical errors and patient safety. Its authors showed that as many as 98,000 people die in hospitals each year due to preventable medical mistakes.

That landmark report indicated medical errors cost between $17 billion and $29 billion a year, in addition to the fatalities.

A decade later, the evidence indicates those numbers are climbing, not receding. There's no definitive study that tells us exactly how many people die each year from preventable medical errors and hospital-acquired infections, but the available research indicates the number now approaches 200,000 per year.

In addition, a 2009 Harvard study showed that in 2005 approximately 45,000 people died because they lacked medical insurance.

A 2009 investigative report by Hearst newspapers, "Dead By Mistake," found that the health care industry, federal government and state governments all failed to enact the recommended steps to lower the preventable death toll outlined in 1999 in "To Err is Human."

As a result, an estimated two million Americans died over that time because of preventable medical errors.

As the national debate over health care reform has raged, the issue of decreasing the number of preventable medical errors has been absent from the heated dialogue. None of the proposed versions of health care reform have required mandatory error reporting by doctors and hospitals (one of the most prominent "To Err is Human" recommendations).

Common Medical Errors

Listed below are some of the most common preventable medical errors that can result in lifelong damage to a patient, including paralysis, organ failure, worsening of their original injury or illness, and in some cases, death.
-Misdiagnosis: A National Institutes of Health report in the UK showed that as many as one out of six patients are misdiagnosed because doctors are hurrying and are often reluctant to ask a second physician's opinion.

-Medication mistakes: According to a report by Consumers Union, many medical errors result from health care providers mixing up the names of drugs to be administered to patients. A 2008 report indicated the anti-inflammatory Prednisone is commonly confused with 17 other drugs with similar names. Packaging and the appearance of the drugs leads to more confusion.

-Hospital-acquired infections: Approximately 5 percent to 10 percent of all patients admitted to acute care and long-term care facilities in the U.S. develop a hospital-acquired, or nosocomial, infection. That's an annual total of more than one million people per year getting sick because they went to the hospital, resulting in about 99,000 deaths per year.

-Surgical errors: Although errors can and do happen in surgery, the reporting of these errors is scant. In many surgical error cases, the negligence occurs in post-operative care as a result of a failure to diagnose a common complication.

Medical malpractice

Medical malpractice lawsuits sometimes make headlines when someone is awarded millions of dollars because a doctor or hospital caused severe injuries. The reality is that these cases are the exceptions, not the norm.

Medical malpractice lawsuits are, at their core, efforts by injured patients or their families, to get a doctor to pay the costs of the medical mistakes they shouldn't have made. These cases involve preventable mistakes that would not have occurred had the health care provider exercised reasonable care.

These lawsuits are a useful legal tool resulting in higher quality care provided by doctors and hospitals. In many cases, patients are reluctant to report injuries inflicted on them by health care providers. Unfortunately, keeping quiet enables negligent doctors and hospitals to continue to provide substandard care.

If you believe you or a loved one has been injured by a doctor or hospital, consult a medical malpractice attorney to discuss your case. A medical malpractice lawyer can help you determine if the medical error was preventable, who might be liable and what claims you may have.

Article provided by Knapp & Roberts
Visit us at www.krattorneysmalpractice.com

Further Related Resources:


Press Release Contact Information:

Findlaw PR