Deadly Medical Errors More Common Than Once Thought

Preventable medical errors may lead to far more patient deaths each year than previously accepted estimates, according to a new report published in the Journal of Patient Safety.

The new study, by John T. James, a toxicologist and founder of Patient Safety First, concluded that medical errors cause between 210,000 and 410,000 preventable deaths of hospital patients every year. The number far exceeds the estimate of a widely cited 1999 report by the Institute of Medicine, which concluded that approximately 98,000 people died annually as a result of medical errors.

James based the estimate on four recent studies that identified avoidable harm to patients. The four studies included 4,200 patients who were hospitalized between 2002 and 2008. Medical researchers found serious adverse events in up to a fifth of cases and fatal adverse events in up to 1.4 percent of cases.

By combining the studies and extrapolating across 34 million hospitalizations in 2007, James estimated that medical mistakes cause 210,00 deaths of hospital patients each year. He said that this number is a baseline and that the actual number is almost certainly much higher because the records analyzed did not take into account diagnostic errors.

If the findings are accurate, medical errors would rank as the third leading cause of death in the United States, behind heart disease and cancer, according to ProPublica, a respected investigative journalism group.

Several recognized patient safety experts who reviewed the new study agreed that the research methods used by James and his findings were credible.

Among them are Dr. Lucian Leape, a physician at Harvard and author of the earlier Institute of Medicine report, who told ProPublica that he had confidence in James’s estimate.

Dr. Marty Makary, a Johns Hopkins Hospital surgeon who has urged greater transparency in medical care, said the numbers suggest that focusing on eliminating medical errors should be a national priority.

James created the advocacy group Patient Safety First in honor of his son, who died in 2002 at age 19 as the result of what he describes as negligent hospital care.

James said that progress on patient safety remains far too slow and he hopes that the latest findings will lead to an “outcry for overdue changes and increased vigilance in medical care to address the problem of harm to patients who come to a hospital seeking only to be healed.”

The medical malpractice lawyers at Morrow Kidman Tinker Macey-Cushman, PLLC represent victims of medical negligence by doctors, nurses, technicians, and other medical personnel in Seattle and across Washington.

Sources: Journal of Patient Safety