We all keep hearing about how there are too many "frivolous lawsuits" (somehow those words are always used together). Of course we never hear those words used together if a comment is about a suit that one business files against another business or even a suit by a business against an individual.
Anyway, the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences (not many people would say that the Institute is a plaintiff-oriented group) has estimated that ANNUALLY between 44,000 and 98,000 Americans die as a result of medical negligence. The full study is at http://www.iom.edu/ObjectFile/Master/4/117/0.pdf. Here's how the Institute, excluding its citations, summarizes the extent of the "error" problem:
"Between 44,000-98,000 Americans die from medical errors annually"Only 55% of patients in a recent random sample of adults received recommended care, with little difference found between care recommended for prevention, to address acute episodes or to treat chronic conditions
"Medication-related errors for hospitalized patients cost roughly $2 billion annually
"41 million uninsured Americans exhibit consistently worse clinical outcomes than the insured, and are at increased risk for dying prematurely
"The lag between the discovery of more effective forms of treatment and their incorporation into routine patient care averages 17 years
"18,000 Americans die each year from heart attacks because they did not receive preventive medications, although they were eligible for them
"Medical errors kill more people per year than breast cancer, AIDS, or motor vehicle accidents
"More than 50% of patients with diabetes, hypertension, tobacco addiction, hyperlipidemia, congestive heart failure, asthma, depression and chronic atrial fibrillation are currently managed inadequately"
And, for those patients who died, how many physicians or hospital employees told the patient's survivors that, "We just made a mistake." Moreover, for the patients who survived the "inadequate" care, how many were told that their care had been inadequate?
I will be giving other examples of systemic problems in subsequent postings; this message arises because by the Food and Drug Administration's announcement on February 25 of its final rule entitled Bar Code Label Requirements for Human Drug Products and Biological Products.
Will this rule help reduce lawsuits? The FDA says that, because of its rule, there will be at least 500,000 fewer "adverse events" over the next 20 years. That's a reduction of over 25,000 per year — or a reduction of more than 2,000 "adverse events per month"!!!. Can you imagine what would happen if just one plane dropped out of the sky each month and only (only!!) a couple hundred people died or were injured each month. Here's what the FDA says about the effect of its rule:
"The Institute of Medicine and other expert bodies have concluded that medical errors have substantial costs in lives, injuries, and wasted health care resources, and that drug-related adverse events are a major component of those errors.
"FDA estimates that the bar code rule, once implemented, will result in more than 500,000 fewer adverse events over the next 20 years. Thus, FDA estimates a 50% reduction in medication errors that would otherwise occur when drugs are dispensed or administered. . ."
Moreover, the reduction will probably be greater than 50% because, as the FDA notes, "some hospitals that currently have bar code systems in place report a higher error reduction from bar code usage."
Here are a couple of ways, again according to the FDA, that the bar coding will help prevent injuries and deaths:
"[A] bar code system could prevent a child from receiving an adult dosage of a drug and prevent a patient from mistakenly receiving a duplicate dose of a drug he or she had already received. A bar code system can also allow the computer to record the time that the patient receives the drug, ensuring more accurate medical records.
And just this one way of reducing error will, among other effects, the FDA notes, reduce hospital litigation, reduce liability insurance, and, oh yes, avoid pain, suffering, and extensions of hospital stays:
"Patients would avoid pain, suffering, and extensions of hospital stays with an estimated value of $93 billion over the next 20 years. In addition, hospitals are expected to avoid litigation associated with preventable adverse events, reduce malpractice liability insurance premiums, and increase receipts from more accurate billing procedures."
Because of all of the demonizing of plaintiff attorneys, I would like to repeat just one of the Institute's conclusions: "Medical errors kill more people per year than breast cancer, AIDS, or motor vehicle accidents." (The Institute has noted that 16,516 die from AIDS, 43,458 from motor vehicle accidents, and 42,297 from breast cancer.)
Rather than demonizing the messenger, maybe, just maybe, we ought to be looking for additional ways to reduce the number of patients who are injured or killed by the ongoing medical malpractice problem.
An addendum: After I drafted the above, I found a February 26 article from the Washington Post. (You may have to register to read the article.) The Post reported that "Federal officials said . . . that the rule has the potential to cut in half the 7,000 hospital deaths attributed to medication error every year." The article also reported that, according to Kenneth W. Kizer, the man who had introduced the bar code system in the VA, after the system was introduced the number of deaths from medical errors had plummeted and that the FDA's new rule was "long overdue." He added, "It's pretty striking that health care has been so far behind in terms of using new technology." (The emphasis is mine. The lament is his.)
A second addendum: I have practiced plaintiff personal injury law almost exclusively. However, I believe that this is the first plaintiff-oriented posting that I have made in my blog. I want this weblog to be open to all kinds of out-of-the-box solutions regardless of whether they are plaintiff- or defendant-related or related even to areas other than personal injury law. So, if you have an out-of-the box solution in any area of law, please let me know.