By Lisa Cummings
Did you know that the third-leading cause of death in America would be medical errors? How many hospital patients do you think die per year? Many studies and organizations assist in providing high estimations of negligent hospital care. Even though there is no exact number of how many U.S. citizens die from malpractice, our approximation brings awareness, improvement on ways to prevent harm to patients, and donations for future research projects. We want you to spread this awareness and assist in eliminating medical errors.
According to one study in an article found in the Journal of Patient Safety, it presents that the recent estimation of patients who experience bad hospital care that could have been preventable and which contributes to their death, will be between 210,000 and 440,000 patients by 2014. A toxicologist at NASA’s space center in Houston came up with this approximation. He runs an advocacy organization also known as Patient Safety America. Some researchers said that James’ study was reliable, after reviewing his methods and findings. James’ four recent studies were successful because of the Global Trigger Tool. This kind of tool helps lead reviewers to find signs of infection, injuries, and other mistakes throughout medical records. There are instances where some medical records fail to show evidence of arm and diagnostic errors that are not caught. James states that an estimate of 4440,000 deaths from care in hospitals “is roughly one-sixth of all deaths that occur in the United States each year,” in his study.
Patients also need to be more involved in identifying harmful events and following up on investigations. James has done a great job on updating the numbers of deaths every year because some malpractices in hospitals can be preventable. Our law firm has great injury attorneys who have successfully dealt with medical malpractice claims. If you or a loved one has been harmed by giving birth, nursing homes, misuse of medical devices or diagnostic errors, please contact us. Help make the rates of hospital patient’s deaths decrease.
