Table Of Iatrogenic
Deaths In The United States
(Deaths induced inadvertently by a physician or surgeon
or by medical treatment or diagnostic procedures) |
| Condition |
Deaths |
Cost |
Author |
| Adverse Drug Reactions |
106,000 |
$12 billion |
Lazarou (1)
Suh (49) |
| Medical error |
98,000 |
$2 billion |
IOM (6) |
| Bedsores |
115,000 |
$55 billion |
Xakellis (7)
Barczak (8) |
| Infection |
88,000 |
$5 billion |
Weinstein (9)
MMWR (10) |
| Malnutrition |
108,800 |
-------- |
Nurses Coalition (11) |
| Outpatients |
199,000 |
$77 billion |
Starfield (12)
Weingart (112) |
| Unnecessary Procedures |
37,136 |
$122 billion |
HCUP(3, 13) |
| Surgery-Related |
32,000 |
$9 billion |
AHRQ(85) |
| TOTAL |
783,936 |
$282 billion |
| We could have an even higher death rate
by using Dr. Lucien Leape's 1997 medical and drug error
rate of 3 million. (14)
Multiplied by the fatality rate of 14 percent (that Leape
used in 1994 (16)
we arrive at an annual death rate of 420,000 for drug
errors and medical errors combined. If we put this number
in place of Lazorou's 106,000 drug errors and the Institute
of Medicine's (IOM) 98,000 medical errors, we could add
another 216,000 deaths making a total of 999,936 deaths
annually. |
| ADR/med error |
420,000 |
$200 billion |
Leape 1997(14) |
| TOTAL |
999,936 |
|
