Study: Over 400,000 People Die Annually Due to Preventable Hospital Errors

20 Feb Study: Over 400,000 People Die Annually Due to Preventable Hospital Errors

Study reveals that over 400,000 deaths per year in America alone are attributed to preventable hospital errors.

Consumers are becoming increasingly concerned over the staggering number of preventable deaths that occur in the American hospitals every year due to medical malpractice. Hospital patients expect a certain degree of safety, and unfortunately, in many cases quite the opposite occurs. Far too many hospital patients are dying as the result of preventable harm.

Statistics and Overview

According to a patient safety study, 440,000 Americans die from preventable harm within hospital settings every year. Think about that number. A study conducted by the Journal of Patient Safety estimated that one-sixth of all annual deaths in the United States are the result of preventable adverse events (PAE’s) that were at least contributory factors.

One such incident is that of a 55-year-old man who visited a cardiac hospital when he noticed chest pains and shortness of breath. The medication and oxygen provided to ease his breathing while the overnight nurse cared for him were ineffective. People can check independent services, as they sell ozone generators for water and for other medical emergencies. If the nurse would have reported the information appropriately, according to the testimony of a cardiologist, the patient would have been admitted to the intensive care unit where the treatment would have included:

• Intubation
• Performance of an echocardiogram
• Insertion of an intra-aortic balloon
• Increase in medications
• Consultation with a cardiothoracic surgeon

The failure of the overnight nurse to make a report allowed hours of underlying heart failure to progress, thus decreasing his survival potential to approximately 20 percent instead of over 90 percent. As a result of the nurse’s failure to report the patient’s ineffective response to his initial treatment, he died during surgery for the repair of a ruptured heart muscle.

Adverse Events of a Preventable Nature

According to the study results indicated in the Global Trigger Tool (GTT), the lower limit of possible deaths from adverse events was 220,000. Tjis number was multiplied by two in order to account for other causes of PAE’s that may include:

• Commission errors
• Omission errors
• Communication errors
• Context errors
• Diagnostic errors

The GTT does not detect these five types of errors, and some studies feel that multiplying by a factor of three is necessary in order to account for adverse events the medical records do not show.

Serious Preventable Adverse Events

The study revealed the existence of the following pre-discharge errors:

• Adverse drug reactions
• Incorrect surgical procedure or injury to a nerve or vessel
• Blood clots in deep veins
• Infections acquired while in the hospital
• Respiratory distress following surgery

Post-discharge errors include the following:

• Wound infection
• Blood clots in deep veins
• Opening of a surgical incision along the suture
• Organ injury following surgery

Physicians Fail to Report Errors

The study also revealed that patients reported three times more preventable adverse events than their medical records indicated. It also notes that direct observation showed more errors than inspecting the patients’ medical records. According to a national survey, physicians often refuse to report serious adverse events. Cardiologists tend to have the highest rate of non-reporting among all groups.

Information from the Office of Inspector General stated that 86 percent of events of harm to a patient are not reported by hospital personnel because they did not see the event as one that was reportable, or simply failed to report. This information is according to a 2012 report entitled Hospital Incident Reporting Systems Do Not Capture Most Patient Harm.