According to The Washington Post’s article titled “Researchers: Medical Errors Now Third Leading Causes of Death in United States”, published on May 3, 2016 by Ariana Eunjung Cha, a new study shows that medical errors in hospitals and health care facilities may now be the third-leading cause of death in the United States claiming 251,000 lives yearly. The study, by patient-safety researchers, was published on the British Medical Journal (BMJ).
Martin Makary, professor of surgery at John Hopkins University School of Medicine, led the research and states that “it boils down to people dying from the care that they receive rather than the disease for which they are seeking care”. According to the study, 251,000 deaths are approximately 700 deaths daily, which is about 9.5% of all death in the United States annually.
Kenneth Sands, Director of Health Quality at Bent Israel Deaconess Medical Center, says that it is surprising the limited changes that have occur since the Institute of Medicine’s report which estimated 98,000 deaths due to medical errors in 1999. Using airplanes as an analogy, Sands says that there is no standardization in hospitals, as there exists when passengers are in an airplane and there is a standard in how the attendants move, talk and prepare passengers for flight.
Also using airplanes as an analogy, Makary states that “when a plane crashes, we don’t say this is confidential information the airline company owns. We consider this part public safety. Hospital should be held to the same standards”.
To read the complete article, see the following link https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2016/05/03/researchers-medical-errors-now-third-leading-cause-of-death-in-united-states/?utm_term=.a7feca6de0f0.