Iatrogenic -- a word you should know…According to Webster's, it means: Induced in a patient by a physician's activity, manner, or therapy. In other words: Caused by a doctor.
Now doctors can cause all kinds of things. Cures. Wellness. Hope. But what about death? Is that something we're used to thinking is caused by our doctors? Well, if you've been reading the Daily Dose -- or my Real Health newsletter -- for any length of time at all, you'll probably answer a resounding YES to that last question. But if you're new, I want to bring you up to speed on a truly frightening statistic -- one that'll shake you to your soon-to-be-ex-mainstream core:
Doctors' sloppy kills more than 7,000 people annually. It's a shocking statistic, and, according to a July 2006 report from the National Academies of Science's Institute of Medicine (IOM), preventable medication mistakes also injure more than 1.5 million Americans annually. Many such errors result from unclear abbreviations and dosage indications and illegible writing on some of the 3.2 billion prescriptions written in the U.S. every year.
The U.S. health care system may contribute to poor health or death. According to Dr. Barbara Starfield of the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health, 250,000 deaths per year are caused by medical errors, making this the third-largest cause of death in the U.S., following heart disease and cancer.
ALL THESE ARE DEATHS PER YEAR in THE USA:
12,000 --- unnecessary surgery
7,000 --- medication errors in hospitals
20,000 --- other errors in hospitals
80,000 --- infections in hospitals
106,000 --- non-error, negative effects of drugs
References
- Schuster M, McGlynn E, Brook R. How good is the quality of health care in the United States? Milbank Q. 1998; 76:517-563.
- Kohn L, ed., Corrigan J, ed., Donaldson M, ed. To Err Is Human: Building a Safer Health System. Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1999.
- Starfield B. Primary Care: Balancing Health Needs, Services, and Technology. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1998.
- World Health Report 2000. Available at http://www.who.int/whr2001/2001/archives/2000/en/index.htm. Accessed June 28, 2000.
- Kunst A. Cross-National Comparisons of Socioeconomic Differences in Mortality. Rotterdam, the Netherlands: Erasmus University; 1997.
- Law M, Wald N. Why heart disease mortality is low in France: The time lag explanation. BMJ. 1999; 313:1471-1480.
- Starfield B. Evaluating the State Children's Health Insurance Program: critical considerations. Annual Rev. Public Health. 2000; 21:569-585.
- Leape L. Unnecessary surgery. Annual Rev. Public Health. 1992; 13:363-383.
- Phillips D, Christenfeld N, Glynn L. Increase in U.S. medication-error deaths between 1983 and 1993. Lancet, 1998; 351:643-644.
- Lazarou J, Pomeranz B, Corey P. Incidence of adverse drug reactions in hospitalized patients. JAMA. 1998; 279:1200-1205.
- Weingart SN, Wilson RM, Gibberd RW, Harrison B. Epidemiology and medical error. BMJ. 2000; 320:774-777.
- Wilkinson R. Unhealthy Societies: The Afflictions of Inequality. London, England: Routledge; 1996.
- Evans R, Roos N. What is right about the Canadian health system? Milbank Q. 1999; 77:393-399.
- Guyer B, Hoyert D, Martin J, Ventura S, MacDorman M, Strobino D. Annual summary of vital statistics, 1998. Pediatrics. 1999; 104:1229-1246.
- Harrold LR, Field TS, Gurwitz JH. Knowledge, patterns of care, and outcomes of care for generalists and specialists. J Gen Intern Med. 1999; 14:499-511.
- Donahoe MT. Comparing generalist and specialty care: discrepancies, deficiencies, and excesses. Arch Intern Med. 1998; 158:1596-1607.
- Anderson G, Poullier J-P. Health Spending, Access, and Outcomes: Trends in Industrialized Countries. New York, NY: The Commonwealth Fund; 1999.
- Mold J, Stein H. The cascade effect in the clinical care of patients. N Engl J Med. 1986; 314:512-514.
- Shi L, Starfield B. Income inequality, primary care, and health indicators. J Fam Pract.1999; 48:275-284.
~http://www.infoimpact.com/newspdf/Cause%20of%20Death_%20Sloppy%20Doctors.pdf
~
~http://www.naturodoc.com/library/public_health/doctors_cause_death.htm
~
~http://www.missingangelsbill.org/news/20040405.html
~
~http://www.ghchealth.com/doctors-leading-cause-of-death.html
~
~http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1578074,00.html
~
~http://www.douglassreport.com/dailydose/dd200303/dd20030318a.html
