Safety

U.S. medical mishaps kill 195,000 people a year

Hospital Safety Connection, July 28, 2004

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A HealthGrades report released this week revealed that about 195,000 people die every year in the United States from preventable medical mistakes, Forbes reports.

The amount increased from a 1999 report citing 98,000 preventable deaths. Medical errors are the sixth-leading cause of death in the U.S.

The report used 16 of 20 "patient safety indicators" developed by the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality to screen hospital administrative data for safety-related incidents from 2000 through 2002. The report looked at 37 million Medicare patient records.

During the review period about 1.14 million "safety-related incidents" associated with 323,993 deaths in hospitals were discovered.



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