Poor progress in five years

Health Management Technology, July, 2005

Despite the focus on patient safety since the landmark Institute of Medicine report, "To Err is Human," as many as 98,000 Americans still die each year because of medical errors. That is the conclusion of a new study published in May by The Journal of the American Medical Association.

Authors Lucian Leape, M.D., of the Harvard School of Public Health and Donald Berwick, M.D., of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement call progress in the patient safety arena "frustratingly slow," citing the continued absence of a national monitoring system for patient safety and little federal funding for safety research. Organizations, cultures and policies, they say, are more to blame than individuals. For examples, hospitals and physicians can bill insurers for procedures to correct a medical mistake, but rarely will insurers pay for practices that prevent medical mistakes.

The authors have called upon leading healthcare organizations to set aggressive and specific goals for improvement in the next five years, including reducing medication errors by 50 percent and eliminating events on the National Quality Forum's list of "never events."