Study: Medical errors cause more than 230,000 deaths in 3-year span
Patient Safety Monitor Alert
April 9, 2008
The most recent HealthGrades Patient Safety in American Hospitals study has found that medical errors caused an $8.8 billion cost to Medicare and 238,337 preventable deaths between 2004 and 2006. The study also found that patients treated at the best performing hospitals had a 43% lower chance of being the victim of a medical error than patients at the poorest performing hospitals. The study examined the records of 41 million Medicare patients.
Bed sores were listed as the medical error for which most patient deaths in the study were blamed. The study analyzed errors around 16 different patient-safety incidents, including many postoperative conditions, transfusion reaction, and accidental puncture or laceration.
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