The Health Care Industry Needs to be More Honest About Medical Errors

Twenty years ago this fall, the Institute of Medicine—an U.S.-based independent, nongovernmental organization widely regarded as an authority at the intersection of medicine and society—released a report titled “To Err Is Human.” It announced that up to 98,000 Americans were dying each year from medical errors. Official and popular reaction was swift. Congress mandated the monitoring of progress in efforts to prevent patient harm, and the health care industry set grand goals, such as reducing medical errors by 50% within five years. News outlets reported on the proceedings closely. A remedy for a longstanding problem seemed in sight. Yet, in 2019, medical errors are about as prevalent as in 1999. “To Err Is Human” was an uneasy read; so is a September 2019 report on patient safety from the World Health Organization. Among WHO’s findings: Globally, hospital-acquired infections afflict about 10% of hospitalized patients. Medical errors harm some 40% of patients in primary and outpatient care. Diagnostic and medication errors hurt millions, and cost billions of dollars every year. So, two decades on, why this chronic state of risk in health care? The chain reaction to the 1999 report spent its energy quickly. Contrary to the report’s calls for expertise from outside the medical profession, patient safety was taken over by clinician managers and other health care administrators whose interests would hardly have been served by a tho...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized Healthcare public health Source Type: news