According to a recent series of articles written by Hearst Newspapers and reported in both the Houston Chronicle and San Francisco Chronicle, medical negligence is the leading cause of accidental death in the United States. The title of the series is called "Dead by Mistake" and reports that 98,000 people die each year from preventable medical errors. A report from the Centers for Disease Control also concluded that 99,000 patients each year die from hospital-acquired infections almost all of which, experts say, are entirely preventable.
In 1999, a report entitled "To Err Is Human" was released and it was believed to be the beginning of greater patient safety. Unfortunately, according to Dead by Mistake, efforts to establish a mandatory national reporting system of serious medical errors was blocked by the American Medical Association and American Hospital Association after both groups spent nearly $81 million in lobbying efforts to prevent such a reporting system.
Dead by Mistake is an intriguing and, unfortunately, frightening report of how many people die each year from unnecessary medical errors in the United States. The report is quick to point out that we have mandatory reporting nationwide for fatal car wrecks, but not for medical errors. It is believed that if there was mandatory reporting of serious medical errors, we would learn that the annual death rate among Americans from medical errors would exceed the annual number of deaths in car wrecks.
The report concludes by offering tips to patients on how to try and protect themselves from medical errors.
