This post is part of our two-week series commemorating the 10-year anniversary of the seminal IOM Report "To Err Is Human." To see all posts in the series, please click here.
“The knowledgeable health reporter for the Boston Globe, Betsy Lehman, died from an overdose during chemotherapy. Willie King had the wrong leg amputated. Ben Kolb was eight years old when he died during ‘minor’ surgery due to a drug mix-up.”
So begins the 1999 Institute of Medicine report “To Err Is Human: Building a Safer Health System” that was released ten years ago tomorrow. The groundbreaking report revealed that as many as 98,000 people die each year from medical errors in hospitals, initiating a national debate on how to address the problem and advancing an entire movement on patient safety. Stories like those above are now heard everywhere, and no discussion of healthcare reform is complete without addressing safety and quality of care.
To mark the anniversary of this pivotal report, the INQRI blog will be posting a series of posts looking at its impact on today’s health care system, asking the question: Are hospitals any safer today than they were then?
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