Most Americans Do Not Believe Patient Safety Has Improved; Want Mandatory Public Reporting of Serious Medical Errors

National Survey on Consumers' Experiences With Patient Safety and Quality Information
by The Kaiser Family Foundation/Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality/Harvard School of Public Health, November 2004

"Maybe the question instead of 'Why do we have so many lawsuits?' is 'Why do we have so few?'" —Kaiser Family Foundation President Drew Altman, 11/17/2004

Five years after a landmark Institute of Medicine study concluded that as many as 98,000 Americans die every year from medical errors, most Americans do not believe patient safety has improved and want mandatory public reporting of serious medical errors, according to a new survey from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and the Harvard School of Public Health.

Most believe quality of care has not improved.
The survey found that 78% of people believe the quality of health care has stayed the same or worsened over the past five years, and 55% say they are dissatisfied with the quality of health care, compared to 44% who reported the same in a survey four years ago. More people are "very worried" about the medical care they and their family receive than they are about the air they breathe, the water they drink and the food they eat.

One in three experienced a medical error.
Despite the fact that about half (49%) of the public believe the annual death total from medical errors to be 5,000 or less—dramatically lower than the Institute of Medicine's estimate of up to 98,000—one in three (34%) say that they or a family member has experienced a medical error, and 21% of all Americans say that a medical error has caused either themselves or a family member serious health consequences, including severe pain (16%), serious loss of time at work (16%), temporary disability (11%), and/or death (8%).

Few injured patients file lawsuits.
However, only 11% of those who say they or a family member had experienced a medical error reported pursuing a malpractice lawsuit and, in instances of serious health consequences, only 14% reported bringing a suit—findings that correlate strongly to the seminal Harvard Medical Practice Study, which found that only 1 in 8 patients injured from negligence ever filed a claim.

Doctors do not tell patients about serious medical errors.
Most people (53%) believe that a doctor would be "somewhat likely" or "very likely" to tell them if a preventable medical error had resulted in serious harm. However, among the 34% who had experienced medical errors, 70% reported that their doctor did not tell them that a medical error had been made.

Patients want mandatory public reporting of errors.
The vast majority (92%) of the public believe that reporting serious medical errors should be mandatory. 88% believe doctors should be required to tell patients if a preventable medical error resulting in serious harm is made in their OWN care. 63% believe that such mandatory reporting of serious medical errors should be released to the public.

"The public isn't getting the quality information it wants," says Robert J. Blendon, Professor of Health Policy at the Harvard School of Public Health. "If the information they wanted the most were to become available, people might use it more often in the choices they make about their own health care."

Updated November 23, 2004