Patient Safety Advocates Urge the Creation of aNational Patient Safety Board to Fight Medical Errors
Posted 07/15/14 at 8:53 am
News Release
Consumers Union
Public Policy and Advocacy Division
of Consumer Reports
Tuesday, July 15, 2014
Patient Safety Advocates Urge the Creation of a National Patient
Safety Board to Fight Medical Errors
Consumers Union’s Safe Patient Project to Highlight Need in
Senate Testimony
WASHINGTON, DC – A network of patient
safety advocates is urging Congress to take steps to improve patient safety by preventing hospital acquired
infections and other preventable medical errors. The group, which includes
Consumers Union, the policy and advocacy division of Consumer Reports, recently
sent a letter to House and Senate lawmakers calling for the establishment of a National
Patient Safety Board and additional Congressional committee action to
improve the quality and safety of care.
Lisa McGiffert, director of Consumers
Union’s Safe Patient Project, said, “Hundreds of thousands of people enter the
hospital each year for treatment of one ailment, but end up losing their lives
due to another. Millions more survive but often after substantial health and
financial losses. Efforts to eliminate these preventable errors and
infections must be stepped up to address this crisis – the third leading cause
of death in the U.S.”
McGiffert will highlight the need for
a National Patient Safety Board and other efforts to improve hospital safety in
her testimony at a Senate Health Subcommittee hearing on Thursday, July
17. The proposed safety board would be modeled after the National Transportation Safety Board
(NTSB) and investigate instances of medical harm. The hearing, “More Than 1,000
Preventable Deaths a Day Is Too Many: The Need to Improve Patient Safety,”
is scheduled to begin at 10am.
“We’re calling on Congress to create
a National Patient Safety Board to ensure that we investigate medical harm
cases properly and institute
preventative measures to protect consumers. Just as the NTSB has made
our airline industry safer for passengers, a National Patient Safety Board
would improve the quality of care in hospitals and elevate patient safety by
significantly reducing patients’ injuries and deaths from preventable medical
errors,” said Yanling Yu of Washington state, lead organizer of the Congressional
letter.
Medical
harm is now the third leading cause of death in the United
States. Reports show that one
out of four hospital patients is harmed by adverse events. At the
national level, it is estimated that as many as 440,000 patients die each year from preventable medical
harm, including 75,000 deaths from hospital-acquired infections alone.
And according to a recent Commonwealth Fund report, the U.S. ranks at the bottom among 11 advanced
countries both on aggregate score and many individual health care measures such
as outcomes, quality, and efficiency.
To read the full letter, click here or
visit www.SafePatientProject.org.
For more information on the Senate Subcommittee hearing, visit www.Help.Senate.gov.
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Media contact: Kara Kelber, kkelber@consumer.org, 202-462-6262
