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• Errors in healthcare: scope of the
  problem
• Suffering

Errors in Healthcare: Scope of the Problem

Study after study has found that the current practice of healthcare falls far short of quality benchmarks. The cost of failing to meet these benchmarks is enormous, whether calculated in terms of unnecessary mortality (death), unnecessary morbidity (illness), reduction in health-related quality of life, or economic costs (Matchar and Samsa). The legal system adds to the financial consequences of errors through settlements, jury verdicts and litigation fees.

Just one type of error, medication errors, has been reported to affect about 2 million hospital patients a year, with some research indicating that nearly 30 percent of mistakes are preventable. Other researchers estimate that 3 million such mistakes occur every year. It is estimated that 20 to 35 percent of the healthcare organization's bottom line goes directly to rework and/or is lost in error (Pinkerton).

Two large studies of adverse events took place in the early 1990's, one conducted in Colorado and Utah and the other in New York. The studies found thai adverse events occurred in 2.9 percent and 3.7 percent of hospitalizations, respectively. In Colorado and Utah hospitals, 8 percent of adverse events led to death as compared with 13.6 percent in New York hospitals. In both of these studies, over half of these adverse events resulted from preventable medical errors. When these statistics are extrapolated to the over 33.6 million admissions to United vStates hospitals in 1997, the results of the study in Colorado and Utah imply that at least 44,000 Americans die each year as a result of medical errors. The New York study data suggests that the number may be 98,000 (Kohn, Corrigan and Donaldson). Dr. Lucian Lcapc, one of the principal investigators in the New York study, believes that as many as 120,000 Americans die each year from hospital errors.