Medical Errors Declared As No. 3 Cause of Deaths in the US

In a recently conducted review of the latest mortality statistics from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), a new study has now highlighted that medical errors is reported to be the third leading cause of death among Americans.

Doctors from John Hopkins have been equally surprised themselves after finding out that medical errors kill far more patients than respiratory diseases like bronchitis or emphysema. Such mistakes prove deadly as medical errors now sit behind cardiovascular diseases and cancer as far as mortality records are concerned.

As per Live Science, the study revealed that 251, 000 reported deaths in 2013 had been attributed to medical errors climbing third behind cardiovascular-related deaths ( 611, 000) and cancer (584, 000 reported deaths). After medical errors came chronic lower respiratory infection accounting for about 150,000 deaths in that same year.

Mistakes often include but not limited to dosage mix-ups, incorrect reporting (or non-reporting) of medications taken by patients, as well as unrecognized surgical complications. The exact toll caused by medical errors is hard to gauge as there are many factors leading medical errors like communication breakdowns, diagnostic errors and poor judgment that are not captured by CDC's coding system to document causes of death on death certificate database.

"You have this overappreciation and overestimate of things like cardiovascular disease, and a vast underrecognition of the place of medical care as the cause of death," lead author Dr. Martin Makary said in an interview as quoted by NPR. "That informs all our national health priorities and our research grants."

Medical errors are intertwined with system-wide issues such as poorly coordinated healthcare to patients, inconsistent and often troublesome insurance coverage problems, and a plethora of bureaucratic-related concerns that often get in the way of better medical reporting.

"Human error is inevitable. But while we cannot eliminate human error, we can better measure the problem to design safer systems mitigating its frequency, visibility, and consequences. Make errors more visible when they occur, so their effects can be intercepted," the study said as quoted by CBS News.

"We've spent a tremendous effort tracking cancer, by state, by subtype, and we report all that to our national cancer registry. But we don't do any of that for people who die of medical error gone wrong."