What Are Medical Errors?

A medical error is an unexpected and undesired event that results directly from the health care or services you receive but which could have been prevented.

Errors may happen:

-when a health professional fails to complete a planned action or treatment as it was intended, uses an incorrect plan for an action or treatment,

-when medical equipment or devices are used incorrectly.

-when medical equipment or devices fail.

It may result in injury or death.

The possibility of a medical error worries many people in today's complex health care system. When health care or services have an unexpected and undesired result, it is called an adverse event. An adverse event may be caused by a medical error when something that was planned as a part of medical care doesn't work out or when the wrong plan was used in the first place. Medical errors can occur anywhere in the health care system: in hospitals, clinics, outpatient surgery centers, health professionals' offices, nursing homes, pharmacies, and patients' homes. Errors can involve medications, surgery, diagnosis, equipment, or lab reports.

Most errors result from problems created by today's complex health care system.

Medical errors are one of the nation's leading causes of death and injury. A recent report by the Institute of Medicine estimates that as many as 44,000 to 98,000 people die in American hospitals each year as the result of medical errors. This means that more people die from medical errors than from motor vehicle accidents, breast cancer, or AIDS.

Government agencies, purchasers of group health care, and health professionals are working together to make the United States health care system safer.