The Need: Enhance Proficiency, Reduce Medical Error
Thousands of Deaths Linked to Medical Errors
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday , November 30, 1999
As many as 98,000 Americans die unnecessarily every year from medical mistakes made by physicians, pharmacists and other health care professionals, according to an independent report released yesterday that calls for a major overhaul of how the nation addresses medical errors. More Americans die from medical mistakes than from breast cancer, highway accidents or AIDS, according to the report from the Institute of Medicine, an arm of the National Academy of Sciences. That costs the nation almost $9 billion a year, the congressionally chartered research group concluded.