Not only are easily preventable medical errors injuring and killing thousands of people each year, but they are none to cheap. Check out the 5th Annual Health Grades Patient Safety in American Hospitals Study (pdf) which outlines the huge number of preventable errors experienced by medicare patients, the excess costs of which are $8.8 billion dollars. That's right...BILLION.
I mean do I have to give out another "Say Whaaaat?" award because I will if I have too? Just recently there was a "Pediatrics" study (pdf) showing that preventable drug errors harm 1 in 15 hospitalized kids or roughly 540,000 annually. Preventable drug errors like the horror story that happened to Dennis Quaid's twins. I mean what is the deal here? That's it I am giving out a "Say Whaaaat?" award--only the second so far in this blog's short history. The award is going to all those organizations who focus on limiting the rights of injured victims instead of promoting real reforms that would improve patient safety. You know who you are.
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