Deaths By Medical Mistakes Hit Records

The way IT is designed remains part of the problem

It's a chilling reality – one often overlooked in annual mortality statistics: Preventable medical errors persist as the No. 3 killer in the U.S. – third only to heart disease and cancer – claiming the lives of some 400,000 people each year. At a Senate hearing Thursday, patient safety officials put their best ideas forward on how to solve the crisis, with IT often at the center of discussions.  Hearing members, who spoke before the Subcommittee on Primary Health and Aging, not only underscored the devastating loss of human life – more than 1,000 people each day – but also called attention to the fact that these medical errors cost the nation a colossal $1 trillion each year.

"The tragedy that we're talking about here (is) deaths taking place that should not be taking place," said subcommittee Chair Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., in his opening remarks.  Among those speaking was Ashish Jha, MD, professor of health policy and management at Harvard School of Public Health, who referenced the Institute of Medicine's 1999 report To Err is Human, which estimated some 100,000 Americans die each year from preventable adverse events.  “When they first came out with that number, it was so staggeringly large, that most people were wondering, 'could that possibly be right?'" said Jha.

Some 15 years later, the evidence is glaring. "The IOM probably got it wrong," he said. "It was clearly an underestimate of the toll of human suffering that goes on from preventable medical errors."  It's not just the 1,000 deaths per day that should be huge cause for alarm, noted Joanne Disch, RN, clinical professor at the University of Minnesota School of Nursing, who also spoke before Congress. There's also the 10,000 serious complications cases resulting from medical errors that occur each day...