War Zones Safer Than Hospital Zones

The U.S. Congress through the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has been rewarding hospitals for preventable medical errors (“never-events”) since 1983 when Diagnosis Related Groups (DRGs) were introduced to inspire hospitals to become efficient. DRGs increased a hospital's payment if a patient was subjected to a never-event creating a tolerance for preventable medical errors. Two and a half decades of the U.S. Congress rewarding hospitals for never-events has created a culture of failure making hospital zones more dangerous than the war zones in Afghanistan and Iraq.

From October 7, 2001 to January 31, 2005, the U.S. Defense Department deployed 1,048,884 troops to Iraq and Afghanistan. During this period 1612 U.S. troops were killed. This calculates to a .154 percent chance of dying in these two war zones.

During this same period, approximately 113.87 million patients (excluding infants) were discharged from our nation’s hospitals. The Institute of Medicine (IOM) 1999 report estimated that 98,000 patients die annually from a preventable error. Using the IOM data, the total preventable hospital deaths from October 7, 2001 through January 31, 2005 were 325,145 for a .29 percent chance of dying in a hospital from a never-event.

HealthGrades reviewed the same data as the IOM and estimated 195,000 patients die annually from a preventable error. Utilizing HealthGrades data a total of 647,671 patients died during this period for a .57 percent chance of dying in a hospital from a never-event.

At best, a U.S hospital is 1.88 times more dangerous than the Iraq/Afghanistan war zone and at worst, the nation’s hospitals are 3.7 times more dangerous than a war zone.

We go to a hospital with the expectation that it is a healing zone. We go to a war zone knowing it is a killing zone. Yet, the U.S Congress is more outraged by the expected consequences of war and the pain and suffering of prisoners of war than the consequences of their failed health care policies have had on innocent Americans that look to the Congress for leadership not the destruction of the nation’s health care delivery system.