Government Releases Data on Frequent Medical Errors
Hospitals are not as safe as many Americans might believe. Shockingly, more people die each year from medical mistakes than in car crashes or from illnesses such as diabetes and pneumonia. The most disturbing part of it all is that many of these fatal mistakes are easily preventable and could be corrected with a simple redesign of medical procedures.
Hospitals have fought long and hard to keep the prevalence of medical mistakes from the public. However, a recent report by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch shows that the government is finally ready to provide information about preventable medical errors. The government analyzed eight types of errors, including air in the bloodstream, falls, bedsores, infusions with the wrong blood type, urinary tract infections, blood infections, uncontrolled blood-sugar levels and foreign objects left in the body after surgery. However, the accuracy and usefulness of the data is unclear, and other serious events such as wrong-site surgeries and medication errors were not included.
Last year, the U.S. Department Health Department revealed that 180,000 Medicare recipients are killed each year because of a medical error. Medical malpractice attorneys at Pintas & Mullins Law Firm continue to advocate on behalf of all patients harmed by medical mistakes and encourage public reporting of errors that could improve patient safety