Every year the Center for Disease Control and Prevention compiles a list of the causes of death in the US. This list, due to the way that death certificates are written does not feature deaths as a result of medical error:
“At that time, it was under-recognized that diagnostic errors, medical mistakes and the absence of safety nets could result in someone’s death, and because of that, medical errors were unintentionally excluded from national health statistics,” explains Martin Makary, of Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore, MD.
After analyzing four studies that looked at the rate of medical errors that resulted in death, they determined that medical error causes approximately 251,454 death a year. According to the CDC the number of killer is heart disease with 611,000+ deaths and second place is cancer with 548,000+. This would put medical error as third on the CDC list if it was to be counted seperately.
Based on this the authors believe that medical error should be a cause of death on the certificate for better future study and analysis. They conclude with:
“Sound scientific methods, beginning with an assessment of the problem, are critical to approaching any health threat to patients. The problem of medical error should not be exempt from this scientific approach.
More appropriate recognition of the role of medical error in patient death could heighten awareness and guide both collaborations and capital investments in research and prevention.”