Just another reason how green is better even than people

Report Says 195,000 Deaths Due to Hospital Error

Tue Jul 27, 6:23 PM ET Add Health - Reuters to My Yahoo!



WASHINGTON (Reuters) - As many as 195,000 people a year could be dying in U.S. hospitals because of easily prevented errors, a company said on Tuesday in an estimate that doubles previous figures.

Lakewood, Colorado-based HealthGrades Inc. said its data covers all 50 states and is more up-to-date than a 1999 study from the Institute of Medicine (news - web sites) that said 98,000 people a year die from medical errors.

"The HealthGrades study shows that the IOM report may have underestimated the number of deaths due to medical errors, and, moreover, that there is little evidence that patient safety has improved in the last five years," said Dr. Samantha Collier, vice president of medical affairs at the company.

The company, which rates hospitals based on a variety of criteria and provides information to insurers and health plans, said its researchers looked at three years of Medicare data in all 50 states and Washington, D.C.

"This Medicare population represented approximately 45 percent of all hospital admissions (excluding obstetric patients) in the U.S. from 2000 to 2002," the company said in a statement.

HealthGrades included as mistakes failure to rescue dying patients and the death of low-risk patients from infections -- neither of which the Institute of Medicine report included.

It said it found about 1.14 million "patient-safety incidents" occurred among the 37 million hospitalizations.

"Of the total 323,993 deaths among Medicare patients in those years who developed one or more patient-safety incidents, 263,864, or 81 percent, of these deaths were directly attributable to the incidents," it added.

"One in every four Medicare patients who were hospitalized from 2000 to 2002 and experienced a patient-safety incident died."

The U.S. government said it is trying to spearhead a move to get hospitals and clinics to use electronic databases and prescribing methods. The Institute of Medicine report said many deaths were due to medication prescribing errors or to errors in delivering medications.

"If the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (news - web sites)'s annual list of leading causes of death included medical errors, it would show up as number six, ahead of diabetes, pneumonia, Alzheimer's disease (news - web sites) and renal disease," Collier said.

Credit goes to Reuters

So what happens to all of the people that make these mistakes and are resposible for that many people dying each year? They can go out makin "little" mistakes and kill people but we cant sit back relax and smoke some bud. GAY

I dont see how this makes green better than ever. And the thing is the lives they save compared to how many people they kill is like 10,000 to 1. Plus the people they kill would die if they didnt help them. And if weed gets legalized it wont solve this problem.

The reason why I'm afraid of hospitals (and dentists). My grandmother never got to see the US because the hospital she went to prescribed her a lotion that contained lead in it and that ended up poisoning and killing her. I've had one doctor forget to give me a local before he started cutting. I've had a dentist prescribe me penicilin which my dental records before say I'm allergic to it. I had a dental assistant shoot my mouth up with novacaine 9 separate times until I was crying and saying "no more" which the dentist came in and stopped the insanity (it was supposed to be a routine cleaning). I've only had a few good experiences and that was with surgery (thank fate). I was prescribed an anti-depressant which made me a risk taker, a zombie with no emotion or sex drive and I ended up throwing up on myself twice. Needless to say, I'm no longer on that medication and have substituted marijuana for my anxiety and manic depressive issues. Can't say that MJ is going to solve an infected tonsil or make gangreen stop in its tracks, but I will say that it's better than any anti depressant the government has ever come up with.
Every one of my family members suffers from depression and I'm the only one that seems to have it under control without passing out in the middle of class (Paxil), or having severe mood swings (Prozac), or without throwing up every other day(Zoloft). There's a new study out there that says the anti depressants have been causing certain users to be violent and suicidal. It just makes you realize that what us humans can come up with for correcting the brain and its dopamine levels is no match for what mother nature has already provided us.

I hear you on the depression comments completely nifty. I have bi-polar, anxiety, and ADD and take all sorts of stupid shit meds. When I am not on proby and can smoke that takes care of all the issues the same if not better and I dont have to pop pills everyday which I hate doing. Also before I was diagnosed bi-polar I was only treated for depression which I later found out can cause more problems than no treatment at all. It can cause suicidal thoughts more often and all sorts of other shit and my depression states would become less often but more severe than when I on my meds for depression only. Smoking never caused any of these problems and one thing would solve what I have to take 3 prescriptions for. Modern medicine is good cause now that I have all the right stuff I am under control, but nothing can beat good old mother nature, cause we all know mom knows best.