Patient Safety Doesn’t Improve Significantly in Ten Years, Study Shows
Hospitals are a safe place; a place to be cured of what ails; a place to be healed; a place where people do whatever they can to prevent further harm. At least that is what hospitals are supposed to be.
A November 2010 New York Times article revealed the results of a study on patient safety in North Carolina hospitals. Sadly, however, the results of the study indicated that patient care had not gotten significantly safer in the decade since the Institute of Medicine's 1999 study. The Institute of Medicine's study showed that hospital negligence continues to occur, resulting annually in nearly 98,000 preventable fatalities and approximately one million preventable injuries.
Michael Millenson, an expert on improving the quality of American health care, aptly sums up the conclusions of the study: "We know how to prevent many of these patient deaths, but we don't."
In his search for an answer as to why this shocking conclusion is so, Mr. Millenson proposed three reasons why patients still suffer preventable deaths and injuries:
- Invisibility - many preventable medical deaths and injuries occur one at a time, across thousands of hospitals. Further, many of these deaths are labeled as inevitable and "only a small portion represent negligence," according to Mr. Millenson.
- Inertia - there is a sense of resistance to change, even in the face of evidence. Mr. Millenson reports that many hospitals that are asked to or given ways to change procedure to prevent injury gave a variety of excuses, ranging from claiming to be too busy to arrogance.
- Income - hospital stays cost money. So the longer the stay as a result of a complication, the more money the hospital can make.
While it may be disheartening to learn that hospital safety hasn't necessarily improved in recent years, there is recourse for the injured. One way to fight back and let it be known that this lackadaisical attitude toward patient safety is unacceptable, is to hold doctors and hospitals accountable for their actions. If you or a loved one has been injured by the negligence of a doctor or hospital, speak with an experienced attorney to discuss your story and find out if you have a medical malpractice case. The attorneys at the Mishkind Law Firm have over 30 years of experience helping individuals and their loved ones recover from medical negligence injuries.
