Medical Errors

   Medication errors occur in 12 to 14 percent of hospital patients, although most of these errors do not result in injury.  36 percent of all patients admitted to a university medical service sustained injury at the hands of a medical professional.  One-fourth of those injuries were serious or life-threatening.  Although medical personnel in an intensive care unit performed 99 percent of their tasks correctly, each patient was subjected to 1.7 errors per day in the Intensive Care Unit, and almost 30 percent of the errors were potentially serious or life-threatening.

SOURCE: Prescribing errors in a teaching hospital, Journal of American Medical Association, 1990. Iatrogenic illness at a university hospital, New England Journal of Medicine, 1981.  Causes of human errors in a medical ICU, 1989.  Human Factors Society annual meeting.