Personal Injury Law

New Fact Sheet Explains Recent Medical Malpractice Studies

By Steven M. Levin and John J. Perconti

The Center for Justice and Democracy recently produced a new document that summarizes recent malpractice studies. The main take-away from the research is that that ?crisis? of malpractice is not caused by lawsuits, but by the actual committing of malpractice. In other words, the way to solve the problems is to ensure that patients are given proper care, not taking away their legal rights after they are unnecessarily harmed by negligent doctors.

For example, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recently reported that about 1 in 7 patients may have suffered a medical mistake, known as an ?adverse event.? Extrapolated out, those numbers are stark: over 134,000 Medicare beneficiaries harmed by doctor each month alone. Of that group 1.5% died as a result of the error?a figure that represents almost 15,000 patients per month.

The cost of the mistakes continues to rise, both in personal and financial ways. Overall, the same HHS report projected the price of the malpractice to hover around $4.4 billion per year. That figure was reached conservatively, without considering the additional costs required for follow-up care following complications from the medical negligence.

Another study published last month in the New England Journal of Medicine reported similar findings. The summary is consistent with common harm, frequent mistakes, and underreporting of errors.

Full post as published by Illinois Medical Malpractice Blog on December 17, 2010 (boomark / email).