How Many Deaths Are Due to Medical Errors?—Reply

Prevention of Chemotherapy Medication Errors

“…3 During the spring and summer of 2000, in large part due to attention brought by the IOM report, spirited debate occurred regarding the accuracy and reliability of these extrapolations as well as the estimated annual costs of preventable adverse events. [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11] Regardless of which annual patient death estimate (if either) is accurate, the problem of medical errors is real and has sparked governmental attention. Also of relevance to health care institutions and their risk managers are the issues of discoverability of error reports and mandatory versus voluntary reporting procedures.…”