Guns? Cars? Drowning? Nope. Health care is number 1. This sheds some light on why the CDC and The New England Medical Journal are so quick to jump on the gun-ban wagon. 120,000 by far outshadows the total for guns and cars put together. How about a new name for HCI? The H should stand for Hospital.
http://www.ohio.com/bj/stories/hospital12.htm
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Medical mistakes take patients' lives
One researcher estimates 1 million people a year injured by hospital errors; 120,000 die
BY ANDREA GERLIN
Philadelphia Inquirer
The Medical College of Pennsylvania Hospital is a typical teaching hospital. It is known for cutting-edge research programs, for training medical students and newly graduated doctors, and for providing advanced medical care.
It is also representative of modern American hospitals in another respect: In the last decade, records show, hundreds of MCP Hospital patients have been seriously injured and at least 66 have died after medical mistakes.
The hospital's records cite 598 incidents reported by medical professionals to the hospital administration in the last decade. In some cases, patients or survivors were never told that the injuries were caused by medical errors. None of the doctors involved was disciplined.
Serious injury and death caused by medical errors are well-known facts of life in the medical community. But they are rarely reported to the public.
MCP Hospital's records came to light only because of bankruptcy proceedings last year, when its new owner filed a detailed account of the 598 incidents reported at the hospital from January 1989 through June 1998.
Those numbers mirror what is happening across the country. Lucian Leape, a Harvard University professor who conducted the most comprehensive study of medical errors in the United States, has estimated that 1 million patients nationwide are injured by errors during hospital treatment each year and 120,000 die as a result.
The number of deaths is the equivalent of what would occur if a jumbo jet crashed every day; it is three times the 43,000 people killed each year in automobile accidents nationwide.[/quote]
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CCW for Ohio action site.
http:/www.ofcc.net
http://www.ohio.com/bj/stories/hospital12.htm
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Medical mistakes take patients' lives
One researcher estimates 1 million people a year injured by hospital errors; 120,000 die
BY ANDREA GERLIN
Philadelphia Inquirer
The Medical College of Pennsylvania Hospital is a typical teaching hospital. It is known for cutting-edge research programs, for training medical students and newly graduated doctors, and for providing advanced medical care.
It is also representative of modern American hospitals in another respect: In the last decade, records show, hundreds of MCP Hospital patients have been seriously injured and at least 66 have died after medical mistakes.
The hospital's records cite 598 incidents reported by medical professionals to the hospital administration in the last decade. In some cases, patients or survivors were never told that the injuries were caused by medical errors. None of the doctors involved was disciplined.
Serious injury and death caused by medical errors are well-known facts of life in the medical community. But they are rarely reported to the public.
MCP Hospital's records came to light only because of bankruptcy proceedings last year, when its new owner filed a detailed account of the 598 incidents reported at the hospital from January 1989 through June 1998.
Those numbers mirror what is happening across the country. Lucian Leape, a Harvard University professor who conducted the most comprehensive study of medical errors in the United States, has estimated that 1 million patients nationwide are injured by errors during hospital treatment each year and 120,000 die as a result.
The number of deaths is the equivalent of what would occur if a jumbo jet crashed every day; it is three times the 43,000 people killed each year in automobile accidents nationwide.[/quote]
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CCW for Ohio action site.
http:/www.ofcc.net