Although reliable figures are hard to come by due to the curtain of secrecy created by the medical industry, one thing is abundantly clear from every study: Too many people are injured and killed by avoidable medical mistakes.
The two leading causes of death in the United States are cardiovascular disease and cancer, in that order. Based on numerous studies, it is likely that the third leading cause of death is medical malpractice.
In 2000, the Institute of Medicine published a groundbreaking study called To Err Is Human. It estimated the annual number of deaths due to avoidable medical mistakes in hospitals alone at 98,000. Many more deaths due to medical malpractice occur outside of hospitals. Since that study was published, the numbers just keep getting worse.
In 2010, the Office of Inspector General for Health and Human Services reported that bad hospital care contributed to the deaths of 180,000 Medicare patients alone each year. As with the earlier report, this report did not include those whose deaths did not occur in the hospital, nor did it include the hospital deaths of any patient who was not a Medicare beneficiary.
In 2013, the Journal of Patient Safety reviewed studies done by others in the years since the Institute of Medicine published its report and found the true number of hospital deaths due to medical negligence to be 400,000 per year with many more suffering serious injury.
More recently, in 2016, researchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine, a highly prestigious medical institution, estimated that more than 250,000 Americans die each year from avoidable medical mistakes.
Each of these investigations was made more difficult by the fact that the medical industry, comprised of the doctors and hospitals, have no interest in coming clean about the number of patients they kill and injure. As far as they are concerned, that is dirty laundry that should not be washed in public. As far as they are concerned, to admit to the scope of the problem would be an invitation to be sued. As a result, the public is kept in the dark about the number of deaths and injuries due to medical mistakes. There is no demand for change. The public is left to think that everything is fine and doctors are doing the best they can. A hospital death was just God’s will or fate. Were the public truly aware of the magnitude of the death and injury toll, one would expect the type of changes we have seen in automotive and airline safety.
The problem is also exacerbated by the way in which states and federal government collect data on the cause of death. The usual method is to list as the primary cause of death the condition that led the patient to seek treatment in the first place. For example, if the patient came to the doctor because of concerns about diabetes and the doctor made a mistake that killed the patient, the cause of death would be recorded as “complications of diabetes.” There is no way for a person reading the death certificate to know or even suspect that the patient died as the result of a medical mistake.
As long as we allow doctors and hospitals to sweep medical mistakes under the rug, we are not going to see any significant improvement in the problem of avoidable medical mistakes causing injury and death. The first step to correcting a problem is to acknowledge that there is a problem. If we want to reduce the amount of death and injury caused by avoidable medical mistakes, we are going to have to require doctors and hospitals to be more candid with patients and the public. Sunlight is indeed the best disinfectant.
The post The Third Leading Cause of Death in America? appeared first on Sandweg & Ager PC.