Third leading cause of death in U.S.? Medical Mistakes

[bradly1101]

http://www.france24.com/en/20160503-medical-error-third-leading-cause-death-us-study?

Medical error is the third largest cause of death in the United States, according to an analysis published Wednesday in the medical journal BMJ.

In 2013, at least 250,000 people died not from the illnesses or injuries that prompted them to seek hospital care but from preventable mistakes, according to the study.

That number exceeds deaths from strokes and Alzheimer's combined, and is topped only by heart disease and cancer, which each claim about 600,000 lives per year.

 

[JSt0rm]

wtf? Is this real?

 

[Matthiasa]

Yes, and this is nothing new...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=20&v=MtSbgUuXdaw

 

[nickqt]

One obvious solution is tort reform, so that doctors won't have to spend as much money on malpractice insurance.

Also: Benghazi.

 

[JSt0rm]

I agree. Also obama and liberals.

 

[MajinCry]

-Nvm, misread-

 

[hardhat]

Statistics like this are so misleading it's criminal. What exactly is a "medical error", and how can you be sure that it lead to a patient's death? And how many people who seek medical care each year would have died without that medical care?

Medicine isn't perfect, and the people who provide care aren't perfect either. But using scare tactics like this is frankly disturbing and leads to people afraid to get vaccinated...afraid to see a dentist..pursuing homeopathic remedies instead of properly treating illnesses... These aren't the days of leaches and cocaine. Medical professionals provide real, evidence based medicine that has directly lead to longer life spans and less debilitating conditions, despite americans leading less savory lifestyles in some ways. Smoking may be down, but obesity is way up. If you want to evaluate medicine, look at the whole picture, instead of trying to scare people.

 

[interchange]

Wait. Doctors are human?

 

[Vaux]

Wait. Doctors are human?

This was going to be my exact response.

Even more shocking, is that police officers are human too! Crazy, huh?

 

[Fenixgoon]

This was going to be my exact response.

Even more shocking, is that police officers are human too! Crazy, huh?

the difference being that the doctor is not actively trying to kill you by shooting you over a "threat to life", perceived or real.

 

[MajinCry]

the difference being that the doctor is not actively trying to kill you by shooting you over a "threat to life", perceived or real.

Wait 'til you hear about soldiers.

 

[Vaux]

the difference being that the doctor is not actively trying to kill you by shooting you over a "threat to life", perceived or real.

Difference being you have no idea what it's like to be a police officer, and yet feel you are qualified to judge based on media headlines.

 

[DrDoug]

When we are sick we go to someone who practices medicine, but when our car needs repair we wouldn't dream of taking it to someone who practices auto repair.

Funny that...

 

[WHAMPOM]

Statistics like this are so misleading it's criminal. What exactly is a "medical error", and how can you be sure that it lead to a patient's death? And how many people who seek medical care each year would have died without that medical care?

Medicine isn't perfect, and the people who provide care aren't perfect either. But using scare tactics like this is frankly disturbing and leads to people afraid to get vaccinated...afraid to see a dentist..pursuing homeopathic remedies instead of properly treating illnesses... These aren't the days of leaches and cocaine. Medical professionals provide real, evidence based medicine that has directly lead to longer life spans and less debilitating conditions, despite americans leading less savory lifestyles in some ways. Smoking may be down, but obesity is way up. If you want to evaluate medicine, look at the whole picture, instead of trying to scare people.

Autopsy reports don't lie. This is where the numbers come from.

 

[WHAMPOM]

Statistics like this are so misleading it's criminal. What exactly is a "medical error", and how can you be sure that it lead to a patient's death? And how many people who seek medical care each year would have died without that medical care?

Medicine isn't perfect, and the people who provide care aren't perfect either. But using scare tactics like this is frankly disturbing and leads to people afraid to get vaccinated...afraid to see a dentist..pursuing homeopathic remedies instead of properly treating illnesses... These aren't the days of leaches and cocaine. Medical professionals provide real, evidence based medicine that has directly lead to longer life spans and less debilitating conditions, despite americans leading less savory lifestyles in some ways. Smoking may be down, but obesity is way up. If you want to evaluate medicine, look at the whole picture, instead of trying to scare people.

The numbers reported aren't about the people that refuse treatment, the numbers are about the people that die from the medical treatment they receive.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Autopsy reports don't lie. This is where the numbers come from.

Numbers without context are useless. Having a couple serious encounters with the medical field I see nurses working 12 hour shifts and then more time on top of that because reimbursements are declining so staffing gets cut.

You can't work people like beasts and get the best out of them. Far from it.

 

[piasabird]

I thought it was not wearing a shirt. It seems like every criminal on the TV is always running around with no shirt on. Spooky, isn't it.

 

[zinfamous]

"Medical error" likely encompasses a very broad range of events that aren't limited to specific mistakes in procedures. IIRC, infected lines (improperly autoclaved, handled, installed) lead to many unnecessary post-surgery infections that will lead to unnecessary death.

While this isn't exactly a mistake in the procedure, it is certainly a mistake in protocol and is rightfully put into the same category. That is not to discount any preventable death during care, simply to place light on the many issues that face the system.

In such cases, you can equally argue that the patient would still have died without care, but that death also could have been prevented if not for medical error.

 

[mizzou]

Dr.s need body cams!

 

[zinfamous]

Dr.s need body cams!

Had them forever. At least, everything that goes on in there is thoroughly documented for review.

 

[interchange]

Had them forever. At least, everything that goes on in there is thoroughly documented for review.

If you mean to imply that medical documentation is an accurate depiction of what goes on in medicine, then, well, that is not the case. There are areas (such as medication administration, lab & imaging orders/results), which are better captured than others.

 

[PokerGuy]

Statistics like this are so misleading it's criminal. What exactly is a "medical error", and how can you be sure that it lead to a patient's death? And how many people who seek medical care each year would have died without that medical care?

This has nothing to do with people not seeking treatment or seeking quack "alternative" treatments or not.

What exactly about these statistics are "so misleading it's criminal"? What stats exactly do you have an issue with?

If someone goes into surgery and not adhering to proper cleaning protocols leads to the person getting an MRSA infection and dying, that is classified as a preventable death. How is that misleading?

 

[PokerGuy]

You can't work people like beasts and get the best out of them. Far from it.

Agree with this 100%. I think it's crazy to have people working 16, 24 or even 36 hour shifts and not expect that they are more likely to make mistakes.

 

[interchange]

These numbers do not capture explicit cause-effect from medical error to death. Such a number would be lower, and much harder to actually estimate. It is only a review of cases where a medical error was found that influenced the cause of death, but it is not easy to say often that such a condition would not have developed with appropriate intervention or that such an error hastened death by any specific time. Of course, such a thing could not be measured after all.

It doesn't matter. They're not cooked up. They're just representing something different than the most basic understanding, and seeing more complexity is hard unless you have experience with medical complications. The magnitude offered is not nearly as relevant as that this is a problem which is significantly more present than typical public scrutiny recognizes, and even further more prevalent than the field typically recognizes.

 

[interchange]

Agree with this 100%. I think it's crazy to have people working 16, 24 or even 36 hour shifts and not expect that they are more likely to make mistakes.

Don't know the exact answer to this, except to say that the error rate is not improving after the 80-hour resident work restriction, and to say that the highest risk period for a patient is in transition from one provider to the next. This is not to discount the obvious truth that fatigue readily contributes to error.