Patient Safety - By the Numbers

• Preventable medical errors kill hundreds of thousands of Americans every year.
• The highest estimate – 195,000 deaths annually in U.S. hospitals alone – cited in a study by HealthGrades Inc. would make medical errors the third-leading cause of death in America behind heart disease and cancer. It is the equivalent of three jumbo jets crashing every day in America. It is nearly four times the number of U.S. troops killed in the Vietnam War.
• Another 90,000 Americans die every year due to hospital-acquired infections, according to federal estimates. More than half those infections may be preventable, experts say.
• An additional 60,000 to 100,000 preventable deaths are caused each year by physicians’ failure to prevent blood-clot formation in nursing home and hospital patients, according to public health officials.
• In the six months between the start of mandatory reporting in June 1 and Dec. 31, 2004, hospitals in Pennsylvania reported 70,851 patient safety incidents, including more than 3,500 “serious events.” By contrast, during the same time period, there were slightly more than 1,000 malpractice lawsuits filed during the same time period across the state.
• Surgical teams accidentally leave clamps, sponges and other tools inside 1,500 U.S. patients a year, according to a January 2003 study by Brigham and Women's Hospital and the Harvard School of Public Health. In the Philadelphia area, the same thing happens in about 80 cases a year, according to a February 2004 report in The Philadelphia Inquirer.
• More than one-third of practicing physicians and 40 percent of the public say they have experienced a medical error in the care that they or a family member received as patients, according to a December 2002 survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard School of Public Health.
• 5.5 percent of doctors nationwide are responsible for more than 57 percent of payouts in medical malpractice lawsuits, according to an April 2005 study by Public Citizen.
• According to an article in the June 20, 2005, edition of Forbes Magazine, titled “Fixing Hospitals”:
  > 3 percent or more of hospital patients are hurt by medical error.
  > 1 in 300 patients die from such mistakes. In U.S. aviation, only 1 in 5 million flights ends in a deadly accident.
  > 24 percent of people say they or a family member have been harmed by a medical error.
  > 180,000 elderly outpatients die or are seriously injured by drug toxicity. Half of these incidents may be preventable.
  > 7,000 patients die from drug errors each year.
  > 554 errors in four months were found at one six-bed intensive care unit; 147 were potentially serious or life-threatening.
  > 55 percent of recommended care actually gets administered.
  > $2,000 is the annual cost to employers per insured worker, due to poor-quality care.