Reducing Medical Errors and Promoting Patient Safety

John M. Eisenberg, M.D., Director of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, testified December 13, 1999, before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education about reducing medical errors and promoting patient safety.

The hearing was called in light of the recent report issued by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) indicating that 44,000—98,000 people die each year as a result of medical errors. According to the IOM study, medical errors are the eighth-leading cause of death in the United States.

EISENBERG: Any system of reporting on patient safety is going to need to address both learning from errors, so that we can improve, and also accountability to the public, so that they know that the care they're getting is acceptably safe.