Patient Safety First... a California Partnership for Health

摘要

Medical errors can happen to anyone at any institution, and the outcomes are often devastating to those who are affected. In the landmark publication of To Err Is Human, the Institute of Medicine reported that as many as 98,000 patients in American hospitals die of avoidable medical errors each year. The human cost of these errors cannot be calculated, considering the negative impact on quality of life due to discomfort, pain, disability, and even death. In a Society of Actuaries report, the cost attributable to medical errors was estimated at $19.5 billion in a given year. Despite local and national efforts to improve patient safety, the magnitude of this problem continues to be significant as the estimated number of people who die from costly, preventable medical errors has increased to more than 400,000 deaths per year.