Medical Errors Cost $8.8B Over Three Years
238,000 Medicare Patients Die From Mistakes
POSTED: Tuesday, April 8, 2008
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Medical errors in treating Medicare patients cost the program $8.8 billion from 2004 to 2006, according to a new study.HealthGrades' study of patient safety found that the safety incidents also caused 238,337 preventable deaths.The group's review of 41 million patient records found that errors were made in 3 percent of all admissions, and those who suffered an error had a one-in-five chance of dying.Some of the medical errors counted in the survey were:Accidental puncture or laceration Complications of anesthesia Bed sores Failure to rescue Foreign body left in during procedure Selected infections due to medical care Post-operative hemorrhage or hematoma Post-operative hip fracture Post-operative pulmonary embolism or deep vein thrombosis Post-operative respiratory failure Post-operative sepsis Bed sores, failure to rescue and respiratory failure made up 63.4 percent of the incidents.The issue could be critical for hospitals, which will stop getting reimbursement for some errors later this year.
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