This week in London, the 6th Annual World Patient Safety, Science and Technology Summit is being held, with doctors, medical experts, patient advocates, drug company representatives, hospital CEOs, and others meeting together to discuss the huge problem of people dying from preventable injuries caused by medical errors.
From the World Health Organization’s Director-General, Dr. Tedros Ghebreyesus:
“The needless suffering of patients and their families is bad enough. But each adverse event erodes the most precious resource in health care, and that’s trust. When people aren’t sure whether it is safe to seek care, they will cease to seek care.”
Medical Mistakes Are the Third Highest Cause of Death in the United States
Deadly medical mistakes are a worldwide problem. It’s particularly shocking here in the United States, where reports for the past few years show that medical errors remain one of the top three causes of death in this country (if not higher).
John Hopkins researchers have found that medical mistakes and health care errors are responsible for over 250,000 deaths each year. Medical errors are the third highest cause of death in this country.
Chicago Report: Medical Errors Are No Surprise to 52% of Americans
Last fall, a new study was released by the University of Chicago in conjunction with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. It found a shocking number of people reporting their personal experiences with medical mistakes (21%). Another thirty-one percent (31%) of Americans report that someone “whose care they were closely involved with” experienced a medical error.
These are not minor errors, either. The 2017 University of Chicago/IHI Study reveals 52% of Americans have personally experienced serious medical mistakes or know someone who has personally been victimized by a medical error that has had a “…lasting impact on the patient’s physical health, emotional health, financial well-being, or family relationships.”
Provider’s Perspective on Fatal Medical Errors and Health Care Mistakes
Doctors, hospital administrators, clinic owners and operators, as well as other health care professionals and researchers tend to avoid harsh descriptions of what is happening here: people are dying because of mistakes being made by those who are tasked with their care and treatment.
Focusing on “Patient Safety”
Dying from preventable injuries is the reality, but those in the health care professions and insurance industry prefer to use terms like “patient safety” and “preventable adverse events” (PAEs).
That’s why the global seminar this week in London is called the Annual Patient Safety Summit instead of the “How Can We Stop Patient Deaths” Meeting.
They focus on jargon that deals with making “patients safer” rather than making it clear that there is a huge problem within the health care profession itself.
There’s even a Journal of Patient Safety, which considers the issue with the following warning:
The epidemic of patient harm in hospitals must be taken more seriously if it is to be curtailed. Fully engaging patients and their advocates during hospital care, systematically seeking the patients’ voice in identifying harms, transparent accountability for harm, and intentional correction of root causes of harm will be necessary to accomplish this goal.
See: James, John T. “A new, evidence-based estimate of patient harms associated with hospital care.” Journal of patient safety9.3 (2013): 122-128.
Challenging the Statistics
Another response within the health care community is to scoff at the numbers. Surely these researchers are wrong, and the numbers are inflated, is the position taken by many physicians and health care administrators.
Just last month an article was published by the American Society for Healthcare Risk Management, entitled “Deaths from medical errors: What to believe, what to think?” In the piece, it is suggested that even though fatal medical errors have been acknowledged as a growing problem since 1999, and while some assert that fatal medical mistakes may be as high as 400,000 victims each year, the researchers must be wrong.
The data is inflated, they say. The researchers – all these reputable researchers – have made their own mistakes, and the claims that we face preventable patient deaths at epidemic proportions “seems preposterous.”
Medical Errors and Patient Deaths are Malpractice Claims
Preventable deaths caused by patient care and treatment are medical malpractice, hospital malpractice, and wrongful death claims because of the actions of a health care provider.
Whatever the reasons for the medical community and the health care industry to disrespect research findings or ignore the experiences of over half the patients in this country (52%), the reality remains that people are dying because of errors and mistakes made as they are being treated and cared for by health care professionals.
In our next post, we will discuss the specifics of these preventable deadly accidents where patients die because of malpractice as well as the legal avenues for justice available to victims of fatal medical errors here in Indiana and Illinois. Let’s be careful out there!
