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Medical Errors in Hospitals: The Stats

Posted on June 6, 2022

An estimated 1.2 million patients are harmed each year due to medical errors at U.S. hospitals, according to a recent article in the Harvard Business Review. Despite a significant effort over two decades to improve safety nationwide, this trend continues.

Simply put, your choice of hospital could put you at risk. Patients are more likely to die when treated in the bottom 10% of hospitals in the country as compared to the top 10%. Those figures may not seem shocking, but what is surprising is that the best and worst hospitals can coexist in the same geographic area.

The article cites the propensity for errors persists for a few reasons:

Tom Duffy is a top medical malpractice attorney in Philadelphia who has secured 8-figure verdicts and settlements for his clients from most of the large teaching hospitals and universities in the Philadelphia area. If you would like to discuss the details of a possible medical malpractice lawsuit in Philadelphia, please contact us.