Medical Mistakes

The most cited reference on the issue of medical mistakes and patient safety is the November 1999 Institute of Medicine (IOM) report entitled, To Err Is Human: Building A Safer Health System. In this article, the IOM concluded that the health care system should be offering healing and comfort, not harm, to patients seeking help. Unfortunately, the health care system is not as safe as it should be leading to 44,000 to 98,000 deaths each year in hospitals from preventable medical mistakes. Accordingly, medical mistakes account for the nation’s eighth leading cause of death.

The IOM mentions that some of the common medical mistakes include:

• Adverse drug events
• Burns
• Falls
• Improper transfusions
• Mistaken patient identities
• Pressure ulcers
• Restraint-related injuries or death
• Suicides
• Surgical injuries
• Wrong-site surgery

Some other common medical mistakes are:

• Equipment failure
• Medical misdiagnosis
• Nonsocomial infections

The IOM estimates that the total financial cost associated with medical mistakes to be between $17 and $29 billion in hospitals each year. Other costs include:

• Loss of trust in the health care system
• Diminished satisfaction with the health care system
• Physical discomfort
• Psychological discomfort
• Health professional loss of morale and frustration
• Lost worker productivity
• Reduced school attendance
• Lower levels of population health status

The IOM explains that the fragmented nature of the health care system contributes to the prevalence of medical mistakes as patients see multiple providers in different settings each with varying quantities of the patient’s available historical medical record (a problem of lack of shared patient health information).

Overall, there has been a limited amount of attention on the prevention of medical mistakes with resistance from some health care organizations and providers. Few health care organizations offer any sort of financial incentive to medical providers to improve safety and quality including prevention of medical mistakes. The multiple causes of medical mistakes caused the IOM to conclude that the majority of medical mistakes are caused by faulty:

• systems
• processes
• conditions

People are led to make mistakes or fail to prevent them, most often as a result of these faulty contributing influences. Medical mistakes, thus, are best prevented by designing a medical system that makes it harder for people to make medical mistakes.

Medical Mistakes Today

Even though the IOM report was published nearly a decade ago, the problem of medical mistakes remains a significant problem in our health system. The contributory influences related to the prevalence of medical mistakes have yet to be adequately remedied. Health care organizations often feel pressure to tighten their budget outlays, including those for available technologies supportive in preventing medical mistakes such as medication distribution errors. Most hospitals and office-based physicians are not using an electronic medical record essential in the sharing of patient health information. Pay-for-performance programs improving safety and quality, including the prevention of medical mistakes, remains an insignificant presence in our nation’s health care delivery system.

Although most medical mistakes are influenced by the changes needed in our nation’s health care delivery system, errors have significant impact on individuals. Like the conclusion by the IOM, the health care system should be offering healing and comfort, not harm, to patients seeking help.

The law firm at Seeger Weiss LLP has a team of attorneys experienced at providing legal assistance to victims of medical mistakes. Medical mistakes can be a form of medical malpractice as the quality of the health care delivery deviates from accepted standards. If you or a family member has been a victim of a medical mistake resulting in injury, harm, or even death, you might want to speak with a lawyer from the law firm of Seeger Weiss for a free case evaluation. For more information, please contact Seeger Weiss, or call (888) 584-0411.