Journal article
Medical Mistakes:Tiptoeing Toward Safety
Houston Journal of Health Law and Policy, Vol.3, pp.181-331
01 Jan 2003
Abstract
Introduction Medical care injures and kills patients. The Institute of Medicine came up with the now familiar projection of up to 98,000 deaths per year, and hundreds of thousands of unnecessary injuries and extra days of hospitalization. 1 The Utah-Colorado Medical Practice Study (UCMPS) found that adverse events connected to surgery accounted for about half (44.9%) of adverse events across both states, with only 16.9% of the surgical adverse events involving negligence. 2 The authors concluded that the UCMPS produced results similar to the earlier New York Harvard Study - three to four percent of all hospitalizations give rise to adverse events. 3 These data suggest that iatrogenic injury is a significant, enduring, and innate feature of the United States hospital system. 4 A new survey of patients by the Commonwealth Fund concludes that nearly 22% of patients have experienced a medical error, with adverse drug events the largest contributor to these errors. 5 System failures account for the vast majority of medical errors in hospitals. 6 Almost 80% of adverse drug events are traceable to a system malfunction. 7 Institutional staffing errors, for example, are often the culprit in patient injury, and long working hours may also contribute. 8 Adverse drug events are a major contributor to iatrogenic illness in hospitals and may account for nearly 10% of hospitalizations. 9 Errors in administration of drugs by nurses are often a primary cause. 10 Most of these drug errors are due to problems with information access and dissemination. ...
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Details
- Title
- Medical Mistakes:Tiptoeing Toward Safety
- Creators
- Barry R. Furrow
- Publication Details
- Houston Journal of Health Law and Policy, Vol.3, pp.181-331
- Publisher
- University of Houston Law Center
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- Thomas R. Kline School of Law
- Identifiers
- 991020542612404721