Tracking Medical Errors would save lives

Tracking Medical Errors would save lives

Medication and medical procedural errors are the third leading cause of death in the U.S. The death toll equivalent to more than if two fully loaded 747’s crashed every day. A May 2016 study by Johns Hopkins estimated that preventable harm in hospitals contributes to the deaths of between 210,000 and 440,000 patients each year. That would make medical injury the nation’s third-leading cause of death, just behind heart disease and cancer.1  The Idaho Child Fatality Review Team presents its annual report on child deaths occurring in Idaho annually.  Grossly missing are the statistics for deaths or critical injury of children due to medical error.  In Idaho, there is no billing code, no procedure or outcome code for medical errors. Due to the lack of tracking, hospitals and staff cannot identify common links or circumstances in order to prevent similar tragedies in the future.  For the last several years our Legislators have been pressured by out-of-state vaccine advocate Paul Offit through the local Wingate organization Let Children Live, to write laws that would force parents to use standard allopathic care or face criminal charges and the removal of their children from their family. <See Bill 1182 from 2017> Forcing families to seek government mandated medical treatment, that is statistically shown to be the third leading cause of death.

More than a decade ago, a landmark study by the Institutes of Medicine — “To Err Is Human” — called for a national registry to track medical harm and bring greater accountability. That hasn’t happened. Instead, it has been largely left to individual hospitals and practitioners to address and learn from incidents of patient harm. Idaho has no such tracking system in place. 

At an Idaho St Luke’s hospital, an infant was given an adult dose of medicine. The baby died. The nurse administering the fatal dose of erroneous medicine was not held liable since there wasn’t an intent to do harm to the child. The young family left with grief of their infant’s death cause wholly by the hospital error.

Looking to malpractice figures in Idaho, we see hundreds of doctors and nurses have erred in providing care to patients resulting in license suspension and revocation. Other research has revealed that, medical error by pediatric hospital staff is as high as 67%. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15342846

Unfortunately, Idaho has no program in place to report adverse events and medical errors. Without the tracking of these vital statistics, Idaho doctors and hospitals can shield their fatal lapses in care, diagnostic mistakes, and dosage errors from public scrutiny. Some of these errors are FATAL.

Over the course of the last several years a local organization, promoted by out-of-state vaccine advocate Paul Offit has been attempting to sway public opinion about criminal exemptions offered to families who choose to opt out of allopathic treatment systems. Under the guise of removing the ‘faith healing’ exemption, Offit’s team has tried to manipulate the child neglect code to criminalize parents who choose alternative means of care for their children. 

This group intends on manipulating public opinion with false statistics and paid ‘news reports’ to convince people into the belief that hundred of children die without medical care. When asked to substantiate the statistics that they throw around, they are forced to admit, they have none. However, the articles they post and the air time they buy at news stations, don’t require them to validate their claims, so they are easily able to manipulate the public and pressure the legislature to change laws reducing parental authority modality of care for our sick and injured children.

We must be vigilant to stand in resistance to groups that’s intent is to undermine parental authority. The statute’s being attacked don’t just apply to those who avoid all medical treatment. The bill 1182, brought forward by Offit’s group, specifically attacked parents who might seek a second opinion in treatment option. Health Freedom Idaho is grateful that our Legislators have said, year after year, that laws are already in place under Child Protective Services and mandated reporting are adequate to protect children from abuse.

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Medical Error The 3rd Leading Cause of Death

Death of August Elliot in Idaho caused directly by Medical error

Faith Healing Workgroup testimony Jean Fischer  

Idaho Pediatric Death Statistics. These are the only statistics available for cause of death. These do NOT take into account medical error. 

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