Medical Errors Are a Huge Problem

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention maintains a list of the leading causes of death in the United States. Their FastStats pages provide quick information on diseases and conditions that threaten the health of our nation. However, their list doesn’t contain what is arguably the most devastating threat to life in the United States.

What are the leading causes of death?

In 2013, the last year for which data is available, heart disease topped the charts, killing 611,105 Americans. Cancer was a close second, causing 584,481 deaths. The next killer drops off dramatically; chronic lower respiratory diseases killed 149,205 people. However, there is a contender for that third spot. According to recent studies, medical errors killed somewhere between 200,000 and 400,000 patients per year in U.S. hospitals.

According to the National Law Review, “These errors include facility acquired infections, medication errors, omissions in treatment, communication errors between health care providers, nerve or vessel injuries, wrong operations, injuries to organs during surgical procedures, blood clots, diagnostic errors, and wound infections.”

Staggeringly, the studies found that the number of medical errors which occurred in a hospital but proved fatal after discharge were equally large. This could potentially put medical errors in contention with heart disease as the leading cause of death in the United States.

The scope of this problem is almost unbelievable. According to some estimates, medical errors cost the country somewhere by $15 billion and $19 billion per year. While the financial cost is quantifiable, the cost to families and loved ones is immeasurable. Medical procedures carry inherent risks, but no one expects a loved one to die after a routine appendectomy because a surgeon made a preventable mistake.

In the past, we’ve written about upcoming technologies that will hopefully reduce the risk of common medical errors. However, the sheer size of the problem merits more attention than it gets. Medical errors and malpractice are serious issues that affect hundreds of thousands of victims and their loved ones.

If you or someone you know has been the victim of a medical error, you may be entitled to compensation for your injuries and pain and suffering. The experienced South Carolina medical malpractice attorneys at McGowan, Hood, Felder & Phillips LLC can evaluate your case and help get you the compensation you deserve. Contact us today for a free consultation.