Analyzing medical death rate data over an eight-year period, Johns Hopkins patient safety experts have calculated that more than 250,000 deaths per year are due to medical error in the U.S.
According to the CDC, in 2013, 611,105 people died of heart disease, 584,881 died of cancer and 149,205 died of chronic respiratory disease — the top three causes of death in the U.S. The newly calculated figure for medical errors puts this cause of death behind cancer but ahead of respiratory disease.
http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/media/releases/study_suggests_medical_errors_now_third_leading_cause_of_death_in_the_us
I belive there may not be a single point person because of whom the mistake has happenned. There should be root cause analysismodelfor every unfortunate event like this and work on a swiss cheese mode and identify wherethe gaps are. However the entire team should communicate with patient and family regardin what hapenned and how they are going to change the system to make sure that would not happen again
Dear Sergey,
It is sad reality that medical errors are responsible for many deaths. That more than 250,000 deaths per year are due to medical error in the U.S. is a tellimg example. Of course, doctors after medical errors should talk with patient or families about their mistake and explain what can be done to prevent it from happening again. More than this, fatal medical errors should have negative consequences, for example, for the promotion of their medical careers. In addition to this, doctors who commit fatal medical errors should be legally responsible for them. As far as I know professional others than doctors are legally responsibble for their mistakes. Why is this not generally the case within the medical profession?
Best regards,
Orlando
Dear Venkatrao, thanks a lot foryour answer.
Let me disagree with you. The banal reason - the doctor did not take into account the compatibility of drugs, as a result of which the concentration of one of them increased by 10 times. The patient has a complication. Well, if the patient is not dead. I believe that in this case the doctor who prescribed such treatment is guilty.
Dear Orlando,
thanks a lot for your answer.
I completely agree with you. The doctor who made the mistake must answer. I believe that mistakes must be discussed with the patient or relatives. I think a very important issue is the doctor's insurance in case of an error. In our country, this law is not yet in place.
Sergey.
Medical error: data and statistics
European data, mostly from European Union Member States, consistently show that medical errors and health-care related adverse events occur in 8% to 12% of hospitalizations. For example, the United Kingdom Department of Health, in its 2000 report An organisation with a memory, estimated about 850 000 adverse events a year (10% of hospital admissions). Spain (in its 2005 national study of adverse events) and France and Denmark have published incidence studies with similar results.
Infections associated with health care affect an estimated 1 in 20 hospital patients on average every year (estimated at 4.1 million patients) with the four most common types being: urinary tract infections (27%), lower respiratory tract infections (24%), surgical site infections (17%) and bloodstream infections (10.5%).
While 23% of European Union citizens claim to have been directly affected by medical error, 18% claim to have experienced a serious medical error in a hospital and 11% to have been prescribed wrong medication. Evidence on medical errors shows that 50% to 70.2% of such harm can be prevented through comprehensive systematic approaches to patient safety.
Statistics show that strategies to reduce the rate of adverse events in the EU alone would lead to the prevention of more than 750 000 harm-inflicting medical errors per year, leading in turn to over 3.2 million fewer days of hospitalization, 260 000 fewer incidents of permanent disability, and 95 000 fewer deaths per year.
http://www.euro.who.int/en/health-topics/Health-systems/patient-safety/data-and-statistics