Hospital Errors FAQs

A 1999 study revealed that medical errors cause harm to approximately 3 percent of all people who are admitted to hospitals in the U.S.

According to the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention, more than 400,000 Americans die each year as a result of mistakes made in hospitals. In addition, more than 700,000 people contract infections each year in hospitals, and more than 75,000 die from hospital-based infections.

Common hospital errors include:

• Medication errors. Studies have found that medication errors cause the deaths of more than 7,000 people each year
• Diagnostic errors (giving an incorrect diagnosis)
• Surgical errors
• Wrong-patient errors (when one patient is mistaken for another patient). Wrong-patient mistakes can be extremely serious and can cause severe injuries or even death
• Anesthesia errors
• Infections acquired while in a hospital

This is just a fraction of the types of errors that can be made.

The federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality estimates that more than a million Americans suffer falls each year during hospital stays. More than one-third of those falls are preventable, the AHRQ says.