Shocking Statistics of Medical Errors in America – the Need for More Effective Review and Preventive Measures Medical errors are identified on the basis of a detailed review of the relevant patient medical records. This article examines the increasing prevalence of such errors in America’s healthcare system. Medical Errors on a Rampage – How Safe Are We? Medical errors cause a number of deaths in America’s hospitals every year. These fatal errors can occur in hospitals, surgery centers, clinics, nursing homes, doctors’ offices, pharmacies and patient homes. Typically, errors are associated with surgery, medication, diagnosis, equipment and lab test reports. This shocking fact was brought to public notice sixteen years ago by the Institute of Medicine in a report that estimated at least 44, 000 or even as many as 98, 000 Americans fall prey to medical errors and die in hospitals every year. Surveys and medical record review of the victims help to understand the statistics involved. A recent article brings this glaring reality back to the limelight declaring that medical errors are still rampant in America, and killing more people than AIDS or drug overdoses. Medical errors occur most frequently either when doctors prescribe the wrong medication assuming it is the right treatment, or when doctors recommend the right treatment plan but fail to follow it. The latter happens when the patient is administered the wrong drug because the doctor’s handwriting is illegible or when a surgeon operates on the wrong body part. Another study published in 2013 in the Journal of Patient Safety puts the number of people killed by the American healthcare system to be between a whopping 210, 000 – 440, 000. Why the Errors Continue to Flourish Here are some of the other reasons cited for hospital deaths in the United States. • Bed sores or pressure ulcers: More than half a million Americans are hospitalized annually for bed sores that have resulted from other care they received (such as that in a nursing home), according to a 2006 government survey. Around 58, 000 of those patients die in the hospital during that admission. While it is true that other conditions including pneumonia and dementia may have caused these deaths, experts say that bed sores are a possible cause as well because some of these patients wouldn’t have died in the absence of bed sores. This calls for more focused care provision for elderly people, especially in nursing homes. The patient needs to be turned frequently to prevent pressure ulcers from developing. The whole point is to provide rigorous attention, which often the patients don’t receive. • Doctors not disclosing their errors: Often, doctors are too embarrassed to disclose their errors to the patients. Since many medical errors go unreported or unnoticed, it is
not seen as a vital issue for the healthcare system to address. Doctors fear malpractice suits and prefer not to reveal the errors they make to their patients. • Doctors not realizing that errors have been made: Sometimes doctors do not even realize that an error has occurred, which further intensifies the problem and makes it difficult to fix. While obvious errors such as surgeons operating on the wrong body part or prescribing the wrong dosage of medication are more easily identified, other issues such as quick decisions treating doctors may take are difficult to trace in the patient’s overall care plan. One doctor may prescribe a specific dosage and another doctor called in later may consider that too big or too small and suggest a change, which could negatively impact the patient. When medical care involves many doctors and nurses who are spread across different hospitals that are not connected via EHR, it can be rather complex. • The fee-for-service payment model: Financial incentives offered in the U.S. healthcare system also increase the difficulty of reducing medical errors, strange as it may sound. Many providers get paid on a fee-for-service basis, which means that each time they provide a service they get paid by the insurance company. Medical errors ironically enough, increase the chance of incentives. Though doctors would not intentionally harm patients, those harmed through an inadvertent error need more care, which in turn entails more healthcare services and more profit for the provider. The ACA does have the provision to penalize hospitals if their patients return within 30 days of their initial visit for something that went wrong during the first visit. High readmission rates could lead to loss of up to 3% of their Medicare revenue. Obamacare also penalizes specific types of errors such as when patients contract infections in the hospital. However, the question remains whether these measures are sufficient in the present scenario. Experts agree that with some really serious effort, the healthcare system can reduce medical errors and save valuable lives. It is difficult though, to find out whether things are really getting better. This is primarily because it is highly challenging to obtain accurate and comprehensive data regarding medical errors in the country. The federal government recently stated that preventable hospital mistakes countrywide had dropped 17% between 2010 and 2013. Even so, the number of patients falling prey to medical errors is still very high. The government has cut Medicare payments to 721 hospitals across the United States for having high rates of preventable medical errors. These hospitals have the highest rates of hospital acquired conditions such as catheterassociated urinary tract infections, central-line associated bloodstream infections, severe complications including blood clots, bed sores, and other infections that are preventable. The penalties imposed amounts to $373 million and are harsher than any earlier penalties. At least more than half of the major teaching hospitals in the U.S. were penalized.
Medicare is planning to add surgical site infections also to its analysis in the fall of 2015; in 2016 it will examine the frequency of antibiotic resistant superbugs Clostridium difficile and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRCA). Personal Injury Cases and the Indispensable Medical Record Review Process Medical malpractice cases arise when a patient is harmed by a healthcare provider – a doctor, nurse or other medical professional. However, the mere fact that the provider made a mistake or a patient was not happy with the treatment provided cannot prove malpractice. For malpractice to be established on legal grounds the provider must have been negligent in some way – i.e., the provider was not competent enough and that incompetence caused injury to the patient. Misdiagnosis or delayed diagnosis, medication errors, surgery errors, anesthesia errors etc. come under the purview of medical malpractice. However, medical malpractice cases are complex and the associated rules vary from state to state. The advice and assistance of an experienced personal injury lawyer is indispensable in fighting such a case. The lawyer will have to review and interpret the relevant medical records to determine whether there has been negligence and this requires a high level of expertise. Medical malpractice and personal injury lawyers utilize medical case history and summary services to best understand the case and present the argument efficiently. The opinion provided by such service providers very often determines whether or not a lawyer will take on a particular client.