A 2016 study concluded that medical errors are the third leading cause of death in the United States. New research concludes that nearly a quarter of all hospital patients suffer harm from a medical error.
The 2016 Johns Hopkins study (“Medical Error—The Third Leading Cause of Death in the US”) found that medical errors are responsible for 250,000 patient deaths each year. Only heart disease and cancer cause more deaths annually, according to the study.
Serious Medical Errors Made in Hospitals
Common, serious medical errors made in hospitals include:
Drivers readily identify dangerous behaviors that lead to serious accidents, yet a significant portion admit to doing them.
Fatal car crashes in this country have increased. In September the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) issued a report on fatal motor vehicle accidents in 2020, the most recent year with final data (“2020 Summary of Motor Vehicle Crashes”). The report notes that 2020 deaths in car and truck crashes climbed nearly 7% compared to 2019.
It also notes a significant year-to-year increase in the number of deaths involving speeding drivers ...
New evidence suggests that misdiagnoses occur in emergency rooms frequently, and often with deadly consequences.
Misdiagnosis is a common medical error. According to the Society to Improve Diagnosis in Medicine, 12 million U.S. patients every year suffer from a missed, delayed or incorrect diagnosis. SIMD asserts that misdiagnoses likely cause more patient harm than all other medical errors combined.
Fatal ER Diagnostic Errors
Recently released research further documents the catastrophic harm caused by diagnostic errors.
The mission of the federal Agency for Healthcare ...
A truck safety organization found 14% of commercial trucks had dangerously defective brakes on one day in April. A few months later the results weren’t significantly better following the organization’s full week of inspections devoted to truck brake safety.
The Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance (CVSA) is a consortium of truck safety officials and state law enforcement officers. Its mission is to make trucking safer and prevent fatal commercial truck crashes.
Negligent Truck Drivers
CVSA periodically conducts roadside inspections of truck drivers and their ...
A little less than half of St. Louis hospitals recently earned average to below-average grades for patient safety.
The Leapfrog Group is an independent, non-profit patient safety organization. For 10 years it has been grading hospitals on patient safety and steps to prevent serious medical errors. It issues grades twice a year, in the spring and fall. It recently issued its Fall 2022 hospital grades.
Leapfrog states that most hospital medical errors can be prevented and notes that 1,000 hospital patients die every day due to a preventable medical mistake. A 2016 Johns Hopkins ...
Misdiagnosis is a medical error that kills up to 80,000 patients every year. A group of medical safety experts has compiled a list of steps hospitals should take to prevent diagnostic errors.
According to the Society to Improve Diagnosis in Medicine, misdiagnoses harm more patients than all other medical errors combined. One-third of medical malpractice lawsuits that involve the patient’s death or permanent disability allege a diagnostic error.
Types of Medical Misdiagnosis
A diagnostic error can involve:
· Wrong diagnosis – patient is incorrectly diagnosed
· Missed ...
As fatal commercial truck crashes continue to rise, safety is not a high priority within the commercial trucking industry.
According to the federal government’s most recent statistics (“Traffic Safety Facts 2020”), nearly 5,000 people were killed in crashes involving large trucks in 2020. More than 70% of those who died were passengers in vehicles other than the truck.
Rise in Fatal Commercial Truck Crashes
The number of people who died in commercial truck accidents in 2020 compared to 2011 rose 31%. In Missouri in 2020, commercial trucks were involved in almost 10% of the ...
The nation’s leading organization of doctors devoted to proper healthcare for infants, children and adolescents recently issued a blueprint for preventing serious medical errors during emergency care to young patients.
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) is comprised of 67,000 pediatricians. In October it released a revised policy statement on safe emergency department care for children. (“Optimizing Pediatric Patient Safety in the Emergency Care Setting”)
It was issued jointly with the American College of Emergency Physicians and the Emergency Nurses ...
Careless truck driver behavior is a leading cause of commercial truck crashes. The trucking industry this month published research that predicts the negligent truck driver actions that are most likely to cause a crash.
The number of people killed in tractor-trailer crashes has risen steadily. According to federal government reporting, deaths from catastrophic commercial truck accidents rose 13% between 2020 and 2021 alone.
The government’s 2006 “Large Truck Crash Causation Study” is the most comprehensive look into the causes of commercial truck accidents to date. It ...
International Infection Prevention Infection Week in this country was established 36 years ago. This year’s observance was October 16-22.
One out of every 31 hospital patients suffers a hospital-acquired infection (HAI), a potentially serious medical error. HAIs reportedly kill tens of thousands of patients every year in the United States.
Common Serious Hospital-Acquired Infections
HAIs occur during a hospital stay or within 30 days after discharge. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says it monitors specific HAIs due to their threats to patient safety ...
RSS Feed