Photo by Spencer Selvidge
I was moved when a family entrusted me to give a eulogy for their beloved. This great privilege highlighted a hallmark of a physician’s service to humanity — “to cure sometimes, alleviate often, but comfort always.” But I was horrified to learn that his death at the hospital may have been the result of a preventable error — one that was withheld from the family.
Sadly, that patient was not an isolated case. The Institute of Medicine’s (“IOM”) seminal report, “To Error is Human” first brought to light a “silent epidemic” of death by hospital errors in 1999. Moreover, the report concluded that “the majority of medical errors do not result from individual recklessness or the actions of a particular group — this is not a ‘bad apple’ problem. More commonly, errors are caused by faulty systems, processes, and conditions that lead people to make mistakes or fail to prevent them.” Among other remedies, the IOM called for increased and uniform nationwide reporting to learn from errors and to halve the death rate of up to 100,000 persons per year within five years.
Nearly 20 years later, the U.S. death rate from hospital errors has not decreased; it has doubled, and now claims about a quarter-million lives every year. It is the third leading cause of death for Americans, responsible for one of every 10 deaths. It accounts for six times more deaths than opioid overdoses. Meanwhile, calls for standardized, nationwide reporting remain unanswered, the epidemic persists, and a culture of silence lingers.