Medical errors: where's the outrage?

If you haven't experienced the potential for medical errors to cost you dearly, invest a few minutes to view this recent 60 Minutes report. Dennis and Kimberly Quaid nearly lost their infant twins in November, 2007 through an accidental hospital-administered drug overdose.

Fortunately, the babies recovered and seem to be doing well now. But the experience, and subsequent discovery of how common and widespread these incidents are, had a profound effect on the couple. And they have taken legal action and initiated a public awareness effort to educate others on the potential for injury and death in even 'routine' medical procedures.

The 60 Minutes clip and additional information on this subject is also available at this NY Times news blog.

If individual examples of this are not disturbing enough, consider the scope of this problem, and that it is not a new phenomenon. In a 2004 article on Medical News Today web site, a recent study of 37 million patient records said, "An average of 195,000 people in the USA died due to potentially preventable, in-hospital medical errors in each of the years 2000, 2001 and 2002."

(Click here for complete article.)

As someone pointed out to me, 195,000 deaths per year would be the equivalent of two Boeing 777 aircraft crashing every single day of the year. And how many Boeing 777 crashes would it take for that model to be grounded until something was done?

You'll hear the argument raised in the 60 Minutes report that unfortunate (but by inference, unavoidable) human error was the cause of the Quaids' close brush with tragedy. Have we become so jaded to it that we dismiss that many deaths as 'normal' risk for the 'benefit' we believe we get from our current health care systems?

It's hard to believe that the entire of fleet of 777 aircraft wouldn't be immediately grounded after just a handful of crashes in a short period of time. Even if it was established that human error was ultimately the cause.

I don't see the outrage yet. But I don't think it's too far off. Watch out for your loved ones in the meantime.