Understanding medical error statistics

People living in Florida may benefit from learning more about some statistics published about medical malpractice incidents. According to an article published by the New England Journal of Medicine over two decades ago, only 2 percent of the patients who suffered a medical injury due to negligence actually sought compensation through civil action. Statistics published by the National Practitioner Data Bank state that among the 35,000 practitioners with at least two payouts for malpractice since 1990, less than 8 percent have actually faced any disciplinary action.

Researchers also concluded that less than 6 percent of the physicians accounted for more than 54 percent of the payouts made for medical malpractice. Unfortunately, you or a family member may have been the victim of this type of negligence. The Institute of Medicine claims that, on average, every hospital experiences five to 10 deaths caused by medical error each year.

The Joint Commission on Hospital Accreditation has claimed that wrong site surgeries, wrong side surgeries, wrong procedure and wrong patient errors account for up to 40 incidents each week. Research published by the Journal of American Medical Association in 2003 found that approximately 32,000 deaths were attributable to surgical error.

If you or another family member have suffered injuries to due medical error, incompetence or negligence, you may benefit from consulting a lawyer. Legal counsel may be able to investigate your injuries and help determine which parties at the medical facility can be held accountable for the damages you haveve suffered. If you would like more information about what to do about an injury caused by medical error, please view our page on failure to diagnose.

Source: Kurzban Kurzban Weinger Tetzeli and Pratt P.A., “National Statistics”, November 06, 2014