Medical errors claim millions of lives and cost trillions of dollars.
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September 17 marks World Patient Safety Day, established at the initiative of the World Health Organization (WHO) to draw attention to this problem at the international level.
By data WHO, the probability of a person dying in a car accident is 1:3,000,000, while the probability of a patient dying as a result of an accident in medical practice is 1:300. About 3 million people in the world die every year due to the negligence or oversight of medical workers. Some harm occurs to every tenth patient, and in more than half of the cases it could have been prevented.
The greatest burden falls on middle- and low-income countries, where 1 in 4 out of 100 patients die from this cause. By data experts, South Asia, as well as the countries of Central and West Africa, lead in the number of deaths.
There is no single global database on the types and number of medical errors in different countries. How shows One study found that in 10% of all cases, harm to the patient is caused by surgical procedures. Another notes that one in 30 patients suffers from negative consequences associated with inappropriate prescription and use of medications. Every 7 (in developed countries) or 15 (in developing countries) out of 100 patients in intensive care units become infected nosocomial infection.
Patients face diagnostic errors and suffer as a result of irregularities in injections, blood transfusions and other medical procedures. Within hospital walls, every third fall results in additional harm to health.
In addition to the immediate threat to people’s lives and health, medical errors result in serious financial losses. According to some estimatesAccording to WHO, they reach 1% of global health spending. According to the latest estimates OECD member countries exceed $800 billion a year, or 12% of their total health care spending. These figures do not include indirect losses to economies and social welfare systems, which could reach trillions of dollars globally.
Adverse consequences, measured by years of healthy life lost, place medical errors on a par with road accidents and major infectious diseases.
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