The latest study of inpatient deaths caused by medical errors — this one by Johns Hopkins researchers — reveals the astonishing fact that in the 17 years since the groundbreaking To Err Is Human report made headlines, estimates of avoidable deaths in hospitals have not decreased, but rather have increased. Medical errors now account for more deaths in the U.S. than any other cause, except for heart disease and cancer, the Hopkins study finds.
The landmark To Err is Human study, published in 1999 by the Institutes of Medicine, estimated annual error-related hospital deaths at 98,000. The study published this month and spearheaded by Dr. Martin Makary, professor of surgery at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, pegged error-caused inpatient deaths at 251,000 per year. A Journal of Patient Safety study published in 2015 estimated errors in patient care harm some 440,000 patients each year.
It is time to implement more aggressive measures to combat this epidemic of medical errors, even a measure that undoubtedly would not sit well with doctors, hospitals and, most certainly, their liability insurance carriers. But it is a measure that the health care industry should embrace if its No. 1 priority truly is patient safety. What is this measure? Doing away with keeping secret from the public the findings of hospital peer review committees.
