In the article titled “To Err is Human” published in 1999, the Institute of Health discovered, after an exhaustive scientific research, that up to 98,000 patients die annually in the United States due to medical errors that are preventable. Said research discredited the belief that the so called “medical malpractice” did not occur frequently enough.
The research was actualized in 2012 by an ambitious investigation carried out by students from the New York University Law School and presented in the article titled “A Dose of Reality for Medical Malpractice Reform”. It was concluded that acts of medical malpractice caused the death of more people annually than AIDS, car accidents and breast cancer.
Another important conclusion reached by the study in 2012, is that hospitals have learned that being honest with the patient when a medical error occurs is more important and productive, when compared with the hospitals that hide or deny any error. In fact, those hospitals that recognized its medical error have significantly reduced the medical malpractice lawsuits against them.