System Safety in Healthcare

A Johns Hopkins study in 2018 claims that more than 250,000 people in the United States die every year from medical errors. Other reports claim the numbers to be as high as 440,000. At that time, medical errors are the third-leading cause of death, after heart disease and cancer. Hospitals make more money when they make mistakes, and reducing mistakes could actually cut into a hospital’s profits, according to a study by the managing director at the Boston Consulting Group, reported in The New York Times. This article shows very profitable examples of the good, as well as bad, practice of medicine.