Hospitals Benefit From Errors

Emily Newton 

Writer 

Hospitals have always been a place that people associate with caring for the ill; a place to get better. Doctors take an oath to uphold the highest of ethical standards, and most of them join the field with an intent to help. However, in the midst of their oath, “to first do no harm,” lies the daunting truth that medical mistakes are occurring and hospitals are not doing all that they can to limit errors.

Although these findings are not new, many people may be surprised to learn that, if it were able to be listed as an official cause of death, medical mistakes would rank third in the United States, behind heart disease and stroke. That means that medical mistakes, as in the preventable, did not have to happen, could have been avoided mistakes, account for a large number of deaths each year. According to the New England Journal of Medicine, one in four patients in a hospital is harmed in some way from a medical mistake. Ironically, the place we go to for care actually harms and kills people at alarming rates. Many studies have reported astonishing statistics and yet, hospitals hesitate to reform and minimize their errors. How can this be and why does it continue to happen? The answer may be a surprise for some people.

Although explicit reasoning has not been determined, statistics have led to suspicion of monetary interests. Many hospitals and insurance companies in the United States operate with a fee-for-service system which implicitly rewards mistakes with extra money. In a recent article, the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) reported that hospitals nearly triple their profits when they make surgical errors, compared to error-free surgeries. This is because insurance companies pay more for longer stays and extra care.

The extra costs from surgical mistakes average $30,500 per patient and can reach as high as $44,000 per patient. The 2011 Health Grades report estimates that the incident rate of medical harm in the United States is over 40,000 harmful and/or lethal errors daily, which is a lot of extra profit from accidents. Some studies predict that without the money collected from errors, some hospitals would actually lose revenue.

Atul Gawande, an American surgeon, writer, and public-health researcher, author of “The Checklist Manifesto,” addresses the surgical error rate. He suggests the use of a simple checklist, similar to that of airline pilots, to minimize surgical mistakes. His checklist includes preventative measures such as confirming the patient’s name, the body part to be operated on, and the list of current medications to avoid adverse effects on the body. This checklist was implemented in numerous surgical trials and reduced the surgical error rate by one third. Have most hospitals adopted this checklist? No. Do most hospitals still operate with a fee-for-service system? Yes.

Mistakes are bound to occur due to the nature of medicine; it is unrealistic to demand that they do not. However, it is not unrealistic to demand that hospitals implement policies to minimize errors, such as those described by Dr. Gawande, and to stop benefiting financially, at the sake of the patients’ health.