The Effectiveness of Reporting

How safe is the health care system in United States? Shockingly, a flight on a domestic airline is safer than a stay in the hospital (Webster). In the United States, a patient has a 36 in 100,000 chance of dying in the hospital from a medical mistake. According to the Institute of Medicine, in November 1999, the estimated death toll each year due to medical mistakes has reached up to 98,000 (When Doctors Make Mistakes). In fact, deaths caused …

…each year. However, the lack of reporting does not create the mistakes, but the inefficiently run health care system. A solution to the problem may be bigger than requiring more regulations; but a poor designed health care system, needing a complete restructuring and upgrading of the entire system to provide the maximum change for the better. The source of the problem is not the lack of reporting, but the procedures and methods currently being used.