17,000 die in Germany from medical errors

[The Straight Story]

17,000 die in Germany from medical errors


DUSSELDORF, Germany, March 5 (UPI) -- About 17,000 deaths per year in Germany are due to preventable medical errors, a patient safety non-profit group estimates.

A report by the German Coalition for Patient Safety says adverse medical events include all harms occurring during patient care that are not due to the underlying disease. In other words, the medical treatment for both inpatient and outpatient care can make a patient ill, the report says.

For example with inpatients, shift work in hospitals necessitates complex organization of the work and numerous planning and communication processes and information may get lost at each interface, the report says.

In addition, hand hygiene is not always optimal -- lack of hand washing can cause infections. Errors in providing medication also occur.

http://www.upi.com/Health_News/2010/03/05/17000-die-in-Germany-from-medical-errors/UPI-52721267847072/

[upi402]

1. I can see the freeps copying&pasting this now

It's getting fainter as I type!

[jwirr]

2. It would be interesting how that compares to our own hospitals.

[Jackpine Radical]

3. 200k preventable-error deaths per year in US v. 17k in Germany.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=deaths-from-avoidable-medical-error-2009-08-10

Preventable medical mistakes and infections are responsible for about 200,000 deaths in the U.S. each year, according to an investigation by the Hearst media corporation. The report comes 10 years after the Institute of Medicine's "To Err Is Human" analysis, which found that 44,000 to 98,000 people were dying annually due to these errors and called for the medical community and government to cut that number in half by 2004.

The precise number of these deaths is still unknown because many states lack a standard or mandatory reporting system for injuries due to medical mistakes. The investigative team gathered disparate medical records, legal documents, personnel files and reports and analyzed databases to arrive at its estimate.

Many, including President Barack Obama, have advocated for a broader adoption of electronic medical records as both a life- and cost-saver. But not everyone is convinced that current technology will help doctors and nurses who already have set ways of handling patient information. "The systems as they stand now are still fairly clunky and user unfriendly," Robert Wachter, a professor of hospital medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, told Hearst. "In the last several years, we've seen a literature emerge of medical errors caused by computer systems."

[Happy Hippy]

6. Well...not so fast

Not to defend US preventable hospital deaths, buts let's strive for some statistical clarity. The US government does not keep official statistics on hospital deaths - there are literally dozens of studies on this issue which list US preventable hospital deaths between 48K - 200K. It's nice to see you picked the highest of available studies. The United States also has 4x the population of Germany. When evaluating these studies it's important to ask who performed them and why? A study conducted by a hospital QMS vendor is likely to be positively skewed for example.

I have plenty of beef with our health care system, but I think our doctors and nurses tend to do the best they can - which is generally very, very good.

I am sure I will be accused of being a winger for this but remember, earlier this month, Danny Williams, the head of government in Canada's Newfoundland province, traveled to Miami Beach to receive heart surgery at Mount Sinai Medical Center. Williams, a popular politician from Canada's center-right Conservative Party, has responded to criticism, saying, "This is my heart, it's my health, and it's my choice." He credited Canada's health-care system with diagnosing his heart problem and says his doctors recommended he go out of province to receive the surgery.

.....why?

[liberalhistorian]

8. How nice for him that he had the financial ability to do this.

Because for those of us without insurance or money in this country, or with crappy insurance called DenialCare, we would have been lucky to have such a problem diagnosed, let alone get access to treatment. And, even if we were, the medical bills alone would bankrupt us into losing what we may own. Medical bankruptcies are a HUGE problem in this country, and they're filed even by those with insurance. With major illnesses, copays and deductibles and denied coverage can add to to tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. And hospitals WILL file liens against your house and take any other assets you have for it.

So, for millions of us in this country, it may be our health but we DO NOT get a choice if we don't have insurance or money upfront or crappy insurance. And the AMA, frankly, isn't interested in that. They're more interested in money than ensuring access to the system for all and ensuring that people won't go bankrupt and lose what they have and have ruined credit for years simply because they had the audacity to get sick. Just trying finding a doctor who will even accept you without insurance. I'm uninsured, so I damn well know what I'm talking about. God help hubby or I if we get injured or a serious illness; we'll likely be financially ruined for life. If we can even find treatment, that is. Williams had the luxury of having the resources to get what he needed. What his own country recognizes is that it's beyond uncivilized and inhumane to deny access to needed care, to bankrupt the sick and injured, to put for-profit considerations ahead of human lives, PERIOD.

A minimum of eighteen THOUSAND Americans die each year for lack of insurance, children among them. And that number is considered to be a conservative estimate, the actual number is thought to be much higher. Tens of thousands more die each year from hospital-acquired infections. And it's been estimated that between 2004 and 2006 there were more than 200,000 deaths attributed to hospital and medical error. Many thousands die each year in this country due solely to medical negligence, even in the "best" hospitals with the "best" doctors. My lifelong best friend was one of them last year. Her death was solely and directly due to a horrendous incident of inexcusable medical negligence; she suffered terribly for nearly a year before succumbing. I will never get over my anger and resentment at such a senseless, pointless loss and at her terrible physical and mental suffering, and neither will her family. And this was at one of the "best" hospitals.

Two other friends and relatives suffered losses due solely to medical negligence as well. It happens in every country and it happens HERE, even among the best. Doctors are human and hospitals are run by humans, not robots, so things are going to happen. It's how they're handled that makes the difference. The medical profession and industry in this country handle it by being far more interested in protecting themselves from accountability and liability, and denying that such negligence even occurs, than in holding themselves accountable for the very real consequences of medical negligence and the very real suffering and loss that results.

I'm not saying that doctors, nurses and other medical professionals don't try, for the most part, to do the best they can and that they don't have very stressful, difficult jobs. Far from it. But they could do far better when it comes to fighting to ensure equal access and that patients aren't bankrupted and financially destroyed, recognizing the existence of medical negligence and doing what they can to prevent it and hold those responsible accountable. Much more.

[Happy Hippy]

10. This always happens.....health care vs. insurance

I simply addressed quality health care not the quality of insurance or insurance availability.

I strongly disagree with this statement:

But they (doctors and nurses) could do far better when it comes to fighting to ensure equal access and that patients aren't bankrupted and financially destroyed, recognizing the existence of medical negligence and doing what they can to prevent it and hold those responsible accountable. Much more.


The reality is that doctors and their staff spend far too much time dealing with insurers. Doctors do not have the time to spend as patient insurance advocates - write your congressmen, lobby for insurance reform, but don't blame doctors for the status of health insurance in this country blame your congressman. Your post sounds like those zealots who think that teachers should be responsible for raising their students.

The more than 200,000 preventable medical deaths number you used has already been disputed in this thread. There are dozens of studies published which range for 40K~ to 200K~. The 200K is clearly a distortion, I'll allow you to google that on your own. Health care in this country is a mess, but you don't need to use misleading statics or statics that you don't understand to make your point.

[Stardust]

11. I heard Thom Hartmann say that Mr. Williams could have had a comparable

procedure done in his home province but he wanted a less cosmetically harmful procedure that is offered in the States.

[gateley]

4. According to Wiki -- between 44,000 - 98,000 annuallyl

In the U.S., medical errors are estimated to result in 44,000 to 98,000 unnecessary deaths and 1,000,000 excess injuries each year.<4><5> One older extrapolation suggests '180,000 people die each year partly as a result of iatrogenic injury, the equivalent of three jumbo-jet crashes every 2 days'.<6> That's more than die from motor vehicle accidents, breast cancer, or AIDS—three causes that receive far more public attention. Indeed, more people die annually from medication errors than from workplace injuries. It is estimated that in a typical 100 to 300 bed hospital in the United States, excess costs of $1,000,000 to $3,000,000 attributable to prolonged stays and complications just due to medication errors occur yearly.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_error


Some other hits when I Googled showed higher numbers...

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

5. 98,000 in the U.S.

http://www.webmd.com/healthy-aging/news/20090519/deadly-medical-errors-still-plague-us

[madrchsod]

7. i got a surgical infection that took over a month to get rid of

after the the third week i had to change my own dressings after the doctor placed new drains. what really pissed me off is that i had to pay 20% of the bill and could`t sue them...

[SidDithers]

9. And how many would have died without medical treatment?...nt

Sid