| NRA Members' Councils of California |
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Doctor Error Mortality Data
195,000 Deaths/Year
SOURCE: |
HealthGrades® - "Health Care Quality Experts" 2004 study |
A well-publicized 1999 Institute of Medicine report entitled "To Err Is Human: Building a Safer Health System" determined that between 44,000 and 98,000 patient deaths are caused by medical personnel annually. The report and it's conclusions are hailed as 'landmark' in a May 2002 statement posted on the website of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services: For the first years the Life/Death Clock was published, we used the value of 71,000 Deaths/Year, splitting the difference of the range reported by the Institute of Medicine.
However, a 2004 study by the Denver-based professional health-care rating service HealthGrades® has more that doubled the conclusion of the earlier report, declaring that, according to the Boston.com news, "...there were 195,000 deaths annually from 2000 to 2002, and estimated that Americans paid an extra $19 billion in medical care costs for the victims of mistakes..."
The article quotes Dr. Samantha Collier, vice president of medical affairs at HealthGrades®, "...The equivalent of 390 jumbo jets full of people are dying each year due to likely preventable, in-hospital medical errors, making this one of the leading killers in the US..."
The HealthGrades® report is available here. (PDF)
