Maryland Hospital Error Attorneys

When we are patients at a hospital, we sometimes literally place our lives in the hands of medical professionals. We trust that they have received adequate training and have the skills and knowledge to treat whatever ails us. While there are certainly highly skilled doctors, surgeons, nurses, and other medical professionals in the medical field, unfortunately, there are also incidents of medical professional mistakes and errors that can cost a patient his or her life.

A recent study by the Office of Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services analyzed the medical records and cases of a random sampling of 780 Medicare patients that were discharged in October of 2008. Researchers discovered that almost 134,000 people per month suffer an “adverse event” while hospitalized, which adds up to about 1.6 million people every year. Even worse, approximately 15,000 of those people die every month, which results in over 180,000 deaths per year that are a result of an error, or the error was a factor in their death. The study noted that almost half of the errors were “clearly or likely preventable.” The adverse events in the study included drug-dosing errors, serious bed sores, surgical and catheter infections, too much IV fluid, falls, poor wound care, equipment malfunctions, and surgical mistakes, such as operating on the wrong part of a patient’s body or on the wrong patient entirely.

According to a report published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), medical mistakes are the third largest cause of death in the United States, closely following cancer and heart disease. There are approximately 225,000 fatalities each year attributed to negligent medical treatment, advice, or care. According to the JAMA report, there are approximately 7,000 fatalities every year as a result of medication errors in hospitals; about 12,000 fatalities every year due to unnecessary surgery; around 20,000 fatalities every year as a result of other, various hospital errors; approximately 80,000 fatalities every year due to hospital-acquired infections; and about 106,000 fatalities every year as a result of adverse reactions to prescribed medications.