Medical Errors Costing U.S. Billions

[Celebration]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/08/AR2008040800957.html

TUESDAY, April 8 (HealthDay News) -- From 2004 through 2006, patient safety errors resulted in 238,337 potentially preventable deaths of U.S. Medicare patients and cost the Medicare program $8.8 billion, according to the fifth annual Patient Safety in American Hospitals Study.

This analysis of 41 million Medicare patient records, released April 8 by HealthGrades, a health care ratings organization, found that patients treated at top-performing hospitals were, on average, 43 percent less likely to experience one or more medical errors than patients at the poorest-performing hospitals.

The overall medical error rate was about 3 percent for all Medicare patients, which works out to about 1.1 million patient safety incidents during the three years included in the analysis.

Among the other findings:

Patients who experienced a patient safety incident had a 20 percent chance of dying as a result of the incident.The overall death rate among patients who experienced one or more patient safety incidents fell by almost 5 percent between 2004 and 2006.However, over that time, there were increases in post-operative respiratory failure, post-operative pulmonary embolism or deep vein thrombosis, post-operative sepsis (blood infection), and post-operative abdominal wound separation/splitting.The most common types of medical errors were bed sores, failure to rescue, and post-operative respiratory failure. Together, they accounted for 63.4 percent of incidents. Failure to rescue improved 11.1 percent from 2004 to 2006, while both bed sores and post-operative respiratory failure worsened during that time.Of the 270,491 deaths that occurred among patients who experienced one or more patient safety incidents, 238,337 were potentially preventable, the researchers said.If all hospitals performed at the level of the top-ranked hospitals, about 220,106 patient safety incidents and 37,214 patient deaths could have been avoided, and about $2 billion could have been saved.

[izzie]

1. I always think of doctors as just people. They make errors.

Do recall half were in the lower half of their class. Some of the errors are really silly. I think it will go on.

[cbayer]

3. See my post below.

The errors are rarely due to a singly person. They occur because the systems are complex and outdated. Physicians play a role but are only a part of the story.

[izzie]

8. True but when you deal with people you will always get errors.

I do think they could do better. As with most things they need some over sight over what they are doing. That is hard. We seem to get over sight on few things any more.

[Clear Blue Sky]

4. Agree

Medical care is getting increasingly complex so the chance of error goes up as well. Doctors and nurses are overworked and this adds to the problem.

[cbayer]

2. There is a very effective campaign being waged about this.

It is being led by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement and it is called the "5 million lives" campaign.

You can look and see if your local hospital has signed up. If they have, you should request information on their progress. If they have not, you should encourage them to do so.

This project utilizes many tools and incorporates patients and the community into redesigning systems.

Check it out:
http://www.ihi.org/IHI/Programs/Campaign/

[HockeyMom]

5. X marks the spot

My husband just had surgery. Somebody, don't know who, actually marked the spot where the operation was to take place. After almost 2 weeks, the writing in dark blue ink is still there.

[Warpy]

7. When I went in for my transplant, they had me point to my eye

and then they stuck a round sticker above it. Just to make sure, they put a shield over the other eye.

They really do try to minimize the number of mistakes, but while they're forcing people to work all sorts of mandatory overtime, mistakes are going to occur much more frequently than they should.

Some errors will always occur, of course. Until we manage to mechanize medicine and eliminate human beings from diagnosing and treating, we will have errors.

[trotsky]

9. Don't be silly, Warpy.

Don't you see that medical mistakes prove that all doctors, all nurses, and all hospitals will kill you because their big pharma masters order it? Far better to get your medical advice from YouTube and Google, avoid all vaccinations, and put some extra cinnamon on your toast to cure your brain cancer. :sarcasm:

[Warpy]

10. Oh, yeah, silly me, how soon I've forgotten.

After all, I always went into work every night with the objective of killing as many patients as I could.

[liberal4truth]

11. I wonder how many of the mistake are due to the "deadlines" the HMO's put on the medical profession

these days?

And, yes, the pun was intended.

[izquierdista]

6. American health care

You can get better care elsewhere, but you can't pay more for it.

[liberal4truth]

12. So true ! Whe will we ever learn? n/t