The report To Err is Human is frequently quoted in the safety literature.   What is not commonly known is the familiar quote of 98,000 Americans dying every year of adverse medical events is based on data from 1984. Has anything changed? A recent study would suggest rates have not changed for the better. In reviewing studies that utilized the Global Trigger Tool(GTT), at least 210,000 deaths a year are associated with preventable harm. This may be an underestimate, as the GTT focuses on errors of commission, thus missing errors of omission.   Coupled with the fact that the GTT also doesn't account well for diagnostic errors, the estimate increases to 440,000 preventable deaths each year, which comes out to 1 death every 1.2 seconds. The authors suggest that the higher incidence may come from improved sensitivity in the tools used to identify preventable adverse events, although it can't be ruled out that events have actually increased, due to increased complexity of medical practice.

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