The number of Americans dying each year from medical errors is enormous. Estimates published by the Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services in November 2010 placed the number of lethal adverse events (roughly half due to medical error) in hospitalized Medicare patients at about 180,000 per year based on evidence in medical records. If we consider deaths in younger hospitalized patients, deaths in outpatients, the errors that are undisclosed in medical records, and diagnostic errors that are undetected by the searches, then the number dying from medical errors each year is probaly between 300,000 and 500,000 people. 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 medical discovery to be used by half the clinicians. Balas and Boren (2000) studied the average rate of increase in use of 9 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.
- It took 25 years (1982-2007) for cardiologists to bring the prescribing of beta-blockers to full use in heart patients that needed them to live.
- 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 (Campbell, et al., 2007).
- Medical records are poor quality based on a study of records on hospitalized heart patients. The grade using a standard tool was 62%-failing in most systems (Dunlay et al. 2008)
- The medical records of 1000 hospitalized patients were reviewed for medical errors and patients were interviewed about medical errors. Three times more serious medical errors were known by patients compared to the number recorded by doctors in medical records (Weismann, et al. 2008).
- 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. Five states have no requirement for CME. Check here to find out if your state is one of them: http://www.ama-assn.org/ama1/pub/upload/mm/40/table16.pdf
- The American Board of Internal Medicine gave lifetime board certification in cardiovascular disease until 1990. Cardiologists board certified before that year have been grandfathered, which means they do not have to do anything to maintain board certification. In 2005 more than half of all cardiologists enjoyed this status as board-certified for life.
- The US ranks 19th of 19 developed countries in deaths preventable by adequate healthcare in persons under 75 years of age. Approximately 330,000 deaths occur prematurely in the US simply because of failures of the healthcare industry. The death rate in France [the best-performing developed country] is approximately half of ours.
- The first-year infant mortality rate in the US ranks us 42nd of all countries as reported by the United Nations in 2009. There is no developed country with a higher infant mortality rate than ours. If our infant mortality in the first year of life were as low as that of Japan, then 16,000 more American babies would live each year.
- The rate of maternal mortality (death associated with childbirth) in the U.S. ranks us 39th among all countries of the world (Lancet, 2010).
- Patient safety is not improving – based on a report in the 24 November 2010 New England Journal of Medicine, the number of medical errors did not decrease from 2002 to 2007.
- I have been told by a past president of the American Board of Medical Specialties that patients know no more than 1 % of the medical errors that happen to them.
- The US health care industry costs us about twice as much per person as any other major healthcare system in the world.
- Visit this link to a congressional report by three physicians on the hundreds of unnecessary heart surgeries that were done in California under the noses of the regulatory organizations. It took the FBI to break up the fraud and incompetence.
- Excessive patient deaths are a concern of the World Health Organization. To see WHO patient safety, click here. To see WHO comments on the US medical system, click here. Look at the 7th and 8th paragraphs.
- The Commonwealth Fund ranks states according to quality of healthcare available to children. Texas ranks 46th among the states and DC in healthcare quality (Mitka, 2008).
