More people die from medical errors in the U.S. than any other cause, with the exception of heart disease and cancer, according to a new report published May 4 in BMJ.
Researchers from Johns Hopkins University analyzed studies on deaths associated with medical errors in the U.S. They extrapolated from the research that 251,454 people a year die from medical errors in U.S. hospitals, a number that would make this type of error the third-ranking cause of death if it were included on the list of most common causes of death maintained by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
For point of comparison, the landmark 1999 report on medical errors by the U.S. Institute of Medicine estimated that between 44,000 and 98,000 people die each year from preventable medical errors.
In the current report, the Johns Hopkins researchers acknowledged that accurate data on deaths attributed to medical error are lacking. Part of the reason is that the International Classification of Disease (ICD) codes do not include an entry for human and system factors as a cause of death.
The researchers suggest that multiple steps be taken to prevent errors and more accurately chronicle their occurrence, such as the following:
- Make errors more visible when they occur so their effects can be intercepted.
- Have remedies at hand to rescue patients.
- Make errors less frequent by following principles that take human limitations into account.
