Helen Haskell on Tracking Medical Errors: How We Err When Counting the Casualties of Medical Care
June 16, 2012By William Heisel June 15, 2012
We will not be able to effectively prevent medical harm until we have a better handle on just how much harm there is.
The source that is most often cited for the frequency of medical harm in the United States – the 1999 Institute of Medicine (IOM) report To Err is Human – relied on data from the 1980s and 1990s for its broad estimate of 44,000 to 98,000 annual deaths from medical error. These numbers came from two studies – one in New York and one in Utah and Colorado – that were initially undertaken to measure the feasibility of malpractice insurance reform. They looked at a wide range of adverse medical events, both fatal and non-fatal, and they also found big differences between populations. The death rate in the New York study, for example, was more than twice that of Utah and Colorado. Read more
The source that is most often cited for the frequency of medical harm in the United States – the 1999 Institute of Medicine (IOM) report To Err is Human – relied on data from the 1980s and 1990s for its broad estimate of 44,000 to 98,000 annual deaths from medical error. These numbers came from two studies – one in New York and one in Utah and Colorado – that were initially undertaken to measure the feasibility of malpractice insurance reform. They looked at a wide range of adverse medical events, both fatal and non-fatal, and they also found big differences between populations. The death rate in the New York study, for example, was more than twice that of Utah and Colorado. Read more