About Us

This site was created to provide information to patients or potential patients who are concerned about the quality of health care they receive in this country. We have no affiliation with any physicians or hospitals; we are patients looking after each other in a health care system that could easily kill us.

Our concern stems from a landmark book called “To Err Is Human: Building a Safer Health System”, published by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the National Acadedmy of Sciences in 2000, and from a subsequent  publication [#10027] by the same group a year later called “Crossing the Quality Chasm: A New Health Care System for the 21st Century.” The first book outlines the magnitude of the medical error problem and discusses immediate strategies for improvement. The second book portrays a vision for a patient-centered health care system that is safe, effective, efficient and equitable. A recent IOM book that is highly readable is called “Knowing What Works in Healthcare” published in 2008. Basically, it asks the question-Why don’t we know what works in healthcare?

The Truth About Healthcare

The number of Americans dying each year from medical errors is enormous. Estimates published in medical literature place the total iatrogenic deaths for hospital patients at 250,000, for outpatient use of therapeutic drugs at 199,000, and for heart failure patients not given beta blockers at 100,000. These estimates place the annual death rate from the medical care system as the third leading cause of death behind heart disease (685,000) and cancer (557,000), and well ahead of cerebral-vascular disease (158,000).

  • It takes 15 years for a new, clinically useful medical discovery to be used by half the clinicians that should be using it for patient care. Balas and Boren (Journal of Medical Informatics, 2000) studied the average rate of increase in use of clinical procedures based on landmark studies and found that the average rate of increase in use was 3.2% per year, thus 15.6 years were required on average for 50% implementation.
  • Cardiologists hide medical errors. A recent article surveying the professionalism of doctors by specialty found that almost 2/3rds of cardiologists admitted that they had recently refused to report a serious medical error that they had direct personal knowledge of to any authority (Annals of Internal Medicine, 2007).
  • Medical specialists are not required by any law to study or demonstrate competency in their specialty after their initial medical training. In Texas the law requires 24 hours per year of continuing medical education, but there is no requirement that physicians take that in their specialty. The Texas Medical Board does random checks on 1% of physicians in Texas each year to determine if they have done any CME.

Report Medical Error

In Texas and many other states, tort reform has made seeking monetary damages for malpractice and wrongful death nearly impossible. There are ways you can report medical errors, but what you must do is report the error to your medical board and then to your U.S. legislators. When you write them make it clear you want a Patient Bill of Rights like the one proposed in my book “A Sea of Broken Hearts.” Tell them you are fed up with a super-expensive healthcare non-system that delivers third-rate care. Make it clear that unless they act, they will not receive your vote in the next election.