Our key challenges - preventing medical errors and improving medical outcome

At some point in our lives each of us will probably be a patient in the health care system.

The American Hospital Association performed a study, implying that 98 000 Americans die each year as a result of a medical error¹. In hospitals, high error rates with serious consequences are most likely in intensive care units, operating rooms and emergency departments.

This means that more people die as a result of medical errors than from motor vehicle accidents (43 458), breast cancer (42 297) or AIDS (16 516)².

A recent Swedish study showed that 8,6 % of the hospitalizations resulted in an adverse event. 51,8 % of the adverse events came from invasive, including surgical, procedures. 70 % of the adverse events were considered preventable³.

Whereas saving costs, improving medical productivity and outcome, a US defense medical simulation trial program have shown that clinical error rate decreased from 30 percent to almost four percent. This is thought to reduce the cost of medical error by $17 billion in the US alone⁴

We strongly believe that a joint effort by all involved stakeholders will lead to a significant decrease in the annual cost of health care services, reduced amount of preventable medical errors and of course, saving lives.