US Doctors killed 251,000 people last year according to John Hopkins

[Oktoberfest]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...united-states/

Medical errors now third leading cause of death in United States

[Masark]

Best medical system in the world, right?

[Zandro]

The number is astounding, but how is this avoidable? Is it malpractice and big mistakes that shouldn't have happened, or is it doctors thinking they were doing right, when they were actually doing wrong?

[Deleted]

“It boils down to people dying from the care that they receive rather than the disease for which they are seeking care,”

Yikes...

Diabetes also damn high on the list.

[Darsithis]

Best medical system in the world, right?

No one has ever said that.

OT: Well, it's not that surprising. Underpaid nurses work 16 - 20 hours a day sometimes in an effort to make enough to eat. Skyrocketing medical costs thanks to people making stupid mistakes (myself included) and obesity lead to hospitals running deficits. Fear of lawsuits leads to expensive insurance that further depletes resources, and you have a tinderbox ready to blow. Makes it super hard to properly implement safety and overworked people slip up and do things they'd never otherwise do.

[sarahtasher]

It would be silly of course to ask questions like ''is this comparable to other countries''

With a 36 second search...

In Canada, 9000 to 23 000 patients died ''annually'' of preventable medical errors according to one study

In France, it's 30 000.

The main difference between those countries and the USA is probably that they are more forthcoming with statistics, as the culture of suing is less pronounced.

[WskyDK]

Was an Army medic for eight years, and just finishing nursing school now (Hooray critical care).
People are fucking complicated. I'm surprised the number isn't higher.

[Oktoberfest]

No one has ever said that.

OT: Well, it's not that surprising. Underpaid nurses work 16 - 20 hours a day sometimes in an effort to make enough to eat. Skyrocketing medical costs thanks to people making stupid mistakes (myself included) and obesity lead to hospitals running deficits. Fear of lawsuits leads to expensive insurance that further depletes resources, and you have a tinderbox ready to blow. Makes it super hard to properly implement safety and overworked people slip up and do things they'd never otherwise do.

I will not argue you on some of that at least. Its funny, we limit how long a person can drive a truck but not how long a person can walk around a hospital prescribing drugs, lack of drugs/treatment and killing scores of people at the same time.

[ro9ue]

Before we bash the US medical system, lets put this in context. What's every other countries' #s?

[Darsithis]

It would be silly of course to ask questions like ''is this comparable to other countries''

With a 36 second search...

In Canada, 9000 to 23 000 patients died last year of preventable medical errors.

I don't think it matters what other countries are like. This is a problem. IF this study is correct, hundreds of thousands of people died last year due to mistakes by the people in charge of saving their lives.

[sarahtasher]

I don't think it matters what other countries are like. This is a problem. IF this study is correct, hundreds of thousands of people died last year due to mistakes by the people in charge of saving their lives.

The answer seems to be that the situation is not much worse in the USA then elsewhere...

[WskyDK]

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/hospital.htm

Some numbers regarding hospital utilization.

[Darsithis]

The answer seems to be that the situation is not much worse in the USA then elsewhere...

I still don't get why it's so important to know about elsewhere. Why not solve the issue here?

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/hospital.htm

Some numbers regarding hospital utilization.

Compared to the number of releases, the 251k isn't that high. It's still a number that can be reduced if we wanted.

[WskyDK]

Compared to the number of releases, the 251k isn't that high. It's still a number that can be reduced if we wanted.

Absolutely.
There have been (for quite some time now) huge pushes in facilities to reduce errors (time outs, etc).
Cutting shifts from 12 to 8 hours would go a long way to reducing issues (for nurses anyways) much of the time there's no third shift to cover the "tired" times.

[Kaesebrezen]

I still don't get why it's so important to know about elsewhere. Why not solve the issue here?

You can take different approaches with global vs. local issues.

If it's an issue exclusive to US, then obviously the issue lies with stuff going on in your country. If not, there might be a more common cause.

[Ripster42]

Pretty sure one of the reasons the doctors in the UK are striking is because they don't want to have to subject themselves to the same hours US doctors work. Even the proposed changes to their hours aren't as bad as the ones worked by US doctors.

[Nihilist74]

Our American medical system basically runs like fast-food restaurant. You tell your doctor your symptoms and he throws pills at you until you stop asking for help.

[Eldar45]

It would be silly of course to ask questions like ''is this comparable to other countries''

With a 36 second search...

In Canada, 9000 to 23 000 patients died ''annually'' of preventable medical errors according to one study

In France, it's 30 000.

The main difference between those countries and the USA is probably that they are more forthcoming with statistics, as the culture of suing is less pronounced.

Based on population they are statistically similar. I don't have any numbers on the amount of people that went to each nations hospitals, but for the USA it is 0.07% of the population, for Canada its 0.06%, and for France its 0.04%.

In other words this is a problem with modern medicine as a whole, not with the US health care system.

[Vanyali]

My mom is a nurse.

She worked 16 hour days, 4 days a week. 3 days off.

She'd come home barely able to walk to bed, let alone be giving out meds.

Yeah.. nursing is fucked up.

[sarahtasher]

I still don't get why it's so important to know about elsewhere. Why not solve the issue here?



Compared to the number of releases, the 251k isn't that high. It's still a number that can be reduced if we wanted.

I was trying to put the matter in context, to say that the issues are likely not uniquely american, not to mention that ''killed patients'' seems a tad dramatic.