US hospitals pass on most of the costs of errors

doi:10.1136/bmj.39551.680417.C2

BMJ 2008;336:852 (19 April), doi:10.1136/bmj.39551.680417.C2

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US hospitals pass on most of the costs of errors

Janice Hopkins Tanne

¹ New York

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

US hospitals pass 78% of the costs of all adverse events and70% of the costs of negligent injuries to other payers, saysa report by Harvard researchers. Their report, published inthe Journal of Empirical Legal Studies (2007;4:835-60), saysthat these other payers include the Medicare insurance planfor elderly people, health insurance companies, disability insuranceprogrammes, and injured patients and their families.

Medical errors cost $17bn (£8.6bn; ${euro}$ 10.7bn) to $29bn ayear in the United States, estimates the Institute of Medicine.Advocates for patients’ safety have tried to persuadehospitals that the cost of malpractice lawsuits and adverseevents are a "business case" for improving safety, the authorsof the report write. However, the study found that hospitalsshift most of the costs of injury to other parties and thereforehave little economic incentive to improve patient safety.