Medical Errors Kill 251,000 Lives Annually, Third Leading Cause Of Death In The US

Medical errors in hospitals and healthcare institutions are becoming increasingly common. A new study found that doctors and healthcare staff have been accidentally killing more than 251,000 patients annually due to those medical errors.

The analysis, which was published this week in the newest edition of BMJ, was conducted by a group of researchers from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, according to EurekAlert. The figure calculated by the study placed medical errors as the third leading cause of death in the United States.

Medical Errors Surpassing Cancer & Heart Diseases As Causes Of Death

That ranking puts it above respiratory diseases that kill almost 150,000 lives every year. Medical errors also exceeded Alzheimer's, stroke and accidents as the top causes of deaths in the country, the Washington Post reported.

Out of 35,416,020 hospitalizations in 2013, there are 251,454 patients who died yearly in the U.S. due to medical errors. It comes after heart disease at 614,348 counts and cancer at 591,699. Martin Makary, the study's lead author, calculated that almost 700 patient deaths due to medical errors occur daily, which accounts for about 9.5 percent deaths yearly in the U.S.

The recent study's number exceeds a calculation done by the Institute of Medicine in 1999. That research only counted 44,000 to 98,000 deaths due to medical errors.

How To Avoid Medical Errors

Kenneth Sands, chief quality officer at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, said hospitals have different styles when it comes to administering medical care to patients. Hospitals don't practice standardization, which makes spotting errors committed by the medical staff hard to pursue, the Washington Post further reported.

The researchers said medical errors aren't necessarily stemming from bad and incompetent doctors and healthcare staff. They said some errors occur due to systemic issues like the lack of consensus protocols that ensure high-end medicine and healthcare delivery, EurekAlert added.

Makary said death certificates don't require enough information from hospitals, CNN reported. A patient's cause of death must be parallel to an insurance billing code, which is not designed to detect human errors.

Solving Medical Errors Not A Priority For Hospitals

Makary also believes that hospitals don't devote money to technology that could avert medical errors. This is because hospitals aren't aware of the extent of medical errors committed, so they don't prioritize investing in ways to ensure patient safety. Financial support for the research of medical errors is also scarce.

It's not just U.S. hospitals that encounter huge numbers of medical errors. Hospitals all over the world have undercounted medical errors as well.