Help for our Healthcare System

Medical Errors Kill 40- 80,000 People A Year

I just recently came across some new information that was rather startling to me and I wanted to share it with you right away.

According to a study recently published in the March 11, 2009 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, misdiagnosis accounts for 40,000 to 80,000 deaths per year.

And tort claims for diagnostic errors – defined as diagnoses that are missed, wrong, or delayed, are nearly twice as common as common claims for medication errors.

Any way you want to look at it, that’s a lot of deaths. And when you add these deaths to the 1.5 million injuries and deaths per year caused by medication errors, you’ve got a huge problem.

I bring this to your attention because a lot of people think our health care system is the best in the world. It isn’t. The World Health Organization (WHO) ranks our health care system 37th in the world. The last time I checked, we rank 24th in the world for “healthy living” by the WHO.

The truth is our health care system could use a lot of improvement.

So what can you do to avoid being a “statistic” in our health care system, or getting injured, or even worse killed?

The easiest thing to do is live a healthy life. Eat the right foods, get plenty of rest, get some exercise every week, take care of your structural health, and limit your medication usage.

Have a “prevention” approach to your health instead of a “reaction” approach. A prevention approach is when you take care of yourself on a regular basis as you get older. A reaction approach is you don’t take care of yourself unless you get sick or injured or get a disease. Living a wellness lifestyle that focuses on optimal health and prevention is always the best approach. It’s also the least costly in the long run.

And if you are a loved one is at the hospital, make sure you pay attention to the details so that no errors are made…because they do happen.