V znanstveni reviji The BMJ (prej imenovani British Medical Journal) je izšel članek z naslovom Medical error—the third leading cause of death in the US, v katerem sta raziskovalca preučila podatke o vzrokih smrti v ZDA in prišla do ugotovitve, da je skoraj v 10% primerih poglavitni vzrok smrti zdravniška napaka. Zdravniške napake so po tej študiji kot vzrok smrti na tretjem mestu takoj za boleznimi srca in rakom.
Martin Makary, a professor of surgery at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine who led the research, said in an interview that the category includes everything from bad doctors to more systemic issues such as communication breakdowns when patients are handed off from one department to another.
“It boils down to people dying from the care that they receive rather than the disease for which they are seeking care,” Makary said.
… The CDC should update its vital statistics reporting requirements so that physicians must report whether there was any error that led to a preventable death, Makary said. “We all know how common it is,” he said. “We also know how infrequently it’s openly discussed.”
… “Measuring the problem is the absolute first step,” he said. “Hospitals are currently investigating deaths where medical error could have been a cause, but they are under-resourced. What we need to do is study patterns nationally.”
He said that in the aviation community every pilot in the world learns from investigations and that the results are disseminated widely. “When a plane crashes, we don’t say this is confidential proprietary information the airline company owns. We consider this part of public safety. Hospitals should be held to the same standards,” Makary said.
Vir: Researchers: Medical errors now third leading cause of death in United States – The Washington Post
Pismo avtorjev raziskave, ki je priloženo članku: Hopkins-CDC-letter
Pogovor z avtorjem raziskave:
