October 15, 2013 in Medical Errors, Medical Malpractice, Preventable Hospital Deaths by Jerry H. Trachtman

Preventable Hospital Deaths Increasing

From the Legal Edge: Stunning Rise in Preventable Hospital Deaths Revealed in New Study
It was only 14 years ago that an attention grabbing report dubbed “To Err is Human” said that 98,000 people were dying each year from preventable hospital errors, and a call to action was made to eradicate the problem. Not only has that not happened, but a new report from the Journal of Patient Safety is even more alarming. It states that as many as 440,000 people are now dying each year from preventable errors, over 1,000 every day.
According to the Center for Disease Control’s data, this would make preventable hospital errors the third leading cause of death in the United States. Some of the examples cited in a recent Forbes article are inexcusable: a sponge left inside a surgical patient for weeks, and a medication injected into a baby at a dosage meant for a 200 pound man. Even if you believe these numbers to be inaccurate, it is clear that there is an epidemic that must be dealt with on a systematic level.