3 ms·

I wasn't aware of this, from the article, which appears to me to be a very, very big deal > more people died every year as a result of preventable accidents in

I wasn't aware of this, from the article, which appears to me to be a very, very big deal > more people died every year as a result of preventable accidents in hospitals than died in car crashes—which was saying something

tim333 10y ago
It's a new finding a quite striking if true Estimates are ~250k/yr for medical error, ~30k road deaths for the US https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11627213 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11627213 You can hear the researcher talking about it here: http://www.bmj.com/content/353/bmj.i2139 http://www.bmj.com/content/353/bmj.i2139
- JshWright 10y ago
  The number of people killed by medical errors thing is a little controversial. People who are about to die anyway get a lot of medical interventions (which is more opportunity for errors, big small). If a patient accidentally gets an extra dose of their antacid 48 hours before they die, is it really likely that error led to their death? Because it would be counted in that 250k/yr number...
  - tim333 10y ago
    Yeah there are question marks about the methodology etc. though it still seems there are a lot of errors https://www.pamedsoc.org/tools-you-can-use/topics/quality-and-value-blog/BlogJune2116 https://www.pamedsoc.org/tools-you-can-use/topics/quality-an...
    - JshWright 10y ago
      Preventable medical errors are certainly something we should continue to work to reduce (significant progress has been made over the past few decades in that regard). I'm not advocating complacency, just pointing out that many people think the 250k/yr number is substantially inflated.
  - DanBC 10y ago
    > Because it would be counted in that 250k/yr number. Do you have a citation that these kinds of trivial, harmless, errors are being counted as medical error deaths?
    - JshWright 10y ago
      Sure, here's a good overview of some of the controversy with this issue. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/16/upshot/death-by-medical-error-adding-context-to-some-scary-numbers.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/16/upshot/death-by-medical-e...

tim333 10y ago

It's a new finding a quite striking if true Estimates are ~250k/yr for medical error, ~30k road deaths for the US https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11627213 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11627213 You can hear the researcher talking about it here: http://www.bmj.com/content/353/bmj.i2139 http://www.bmj.com/content/353/bmj.i2139

JshWright 10y ago
The number of people killed by medical errors thing is a little controversial. People who are about to die anyway get a lot of medical interventions (which is more opportunity for errors, big small). If a patient accidentally gets an extra dose of their antacid 48 hours before they die, is it really likely that error led to their death? Because it would be counted in that 250k/yr number...
- tim333 10y ago
  Yeah there are question marks about the methodology etc. though it still seems there are a lot of errors https://www.pamedsoc.org/tools-you-can-use/topics/quality-and-value-blog/BlogJune2116 https://www.pamedsoc.org/tools-you-can-use/topics/quality-an...
  - JshWright 10y ago
    Preventable medical errors are certainly something we should continue to work to reduce (significant progress has been made over the past few decades in that regard). I'm not advocating complacency, just pointing out that many people think the 250k/yr number is substantially inflated.
- DanBC 10y ago
  > Because it would be counted in that 250k/yr number. Do you have a citation that these kinds of trivial, harmless, errors are being counted as medical error deaths?
  - JshWright 10y ago
    Sure, here's a good overview of some of the controversy with this issue. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/16/upshot/death-by-medical-error-adding-context-to-some-scary-numbers.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/16/upshot/death-by-medical-e...