More Proof Medical Error Is Not The Third Leading Cause Of Death

Over the last 20 years, estimates of the number of deaths caused by medical error have risen from 44,000-98,000 in 1999 [1] all the way up to 440,000 [2] and 251,000 [3]. Despite my efforts [4, 5] and those of others [6, 7] to debunk these guesses, they continue to permeate the lay press. If you Google “third leading cause of death,” you will find countless headlines naming medical error.



The papers claiming medical errors cause so many deaths assume that all complications result from errors and all complications are preventable. They extrapolate their final numbers from small studies not designed to or capable of estimating deaths due to medical error nationwide.

The most recent figures available from the National Hospital Discharge Survey [8] state that the number of hospital deaths dropped from 776,000 in the year 2000 to 715,000 in 2010. It is simply not plausible that 251,000 (35%) or 440,000 (61%) inpatient deaths are due to medical error.

A recent study [9] from Norway found that of 1000 consecutive in-hospital deaths reviewed, only 42 (4.2%) were judged to be probably (greater than a 50% chance) to definitely avoidable.
The investigation took place at a 900-bed university hospital and excluded patients who died on psychiatric or obstetric services and those 16 years of age and under. Patient records were reviewed by five clinicians with experience in patient safety and quality improvement. The most likely place for a possibly preventable death to have occurred was during an invasive procedure. However, the authors point out that “medical errors, both of omission and commission, are more easily discerned in surgery than elsewhere.”

Retrospective case record review can be difficult due to problems with inter-rater reliability, hindsight bias, and the difficulty in deciding what might have happened to a patient had an error not occurred. The median age of patients in the Norwegian study was 77. The 42 patients whose deaths might have been avoidable were significantly more likely to have had trauma, poisoning, or other external causes of hospitalization and more likely to have been admitted to a higher level of care.

Since extrapolations are part of most papers regarding deaths due to medical error, here is mine. Assuming there are approximately 700,000 patients per year die in US hospitals, a rate of 4.2% yields 29,400 deaths. That is an unacceptable number and should be reduced, but it is far less than 251,000 or 440,000.

As far as I know, the Norwegian study received no media coverage. Why not? Because it is good news and would not have generated any sensational or clickbait headlines.

References

1. Institute of Medicine. To Error Is Human: Building a Safer Health System, 1999
2. James, J. A new, evidence-based estimate of patient harms associated with hospital care. J Patient Saf, 2013
3. Makary M, Daniel M. Medical error—the third leading cause of death in the US. BMJ, 2016
4. Skeptical Scalpel. Medical errors and deaths: Is the problem getting worse? September 23, 2013
5. Skeptical scalpel. Are there really 250,000 preventable deaths per year in US hospitals? May 5, 2016
6. Hogan H. The problem with preventable deaths. BMJ Qual Saf 25:320-3, 2016
7. Shojania K, Dixon-Woods M estimating deaths due to medical error: The ongoing controversy and why it matters. BMJ Qual Saf 26:423-8, 2017
8. National Hospital Discharge Survey
9. Rogne et al. rate of avoidable deaths in a Norwegian hospital trust as judged by retrospective chart review. BMJ Qual Saf Published Online First: 19 July 2018

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