The misuse and overuse of medicine and medical procedures jeopardize patient safety. Unnecessary hospitalizations and unwanted surgeries expose patients to the possibility of suffering hospital-acquired infections, medication errors or other medical errors.
The rate of errors in the health care system – errors which can result in patient harm -- is far higher than the rate of error that would be tolerated in other sectors of the economy:
An Institute of Medicine report highlighting the dangers posed to American patients by medical errors notes that improvements in these statistics have been painfully slow. From 2000 to 2005, patient safety improved at an annual rate of only 1 percent.
| “Evidence-based medicine doesn’t mean that everybody believes exactly the same thing. It doesn’t mean you have to use one drug or a certain combination of drugs. It means that we have parameters of what’s reasonable. If someone is way outside the parameters for us, they have the opportunity to make a case.” Mark Bird MD, anesthesiologist and staff physician at Kaiser Permanente, former board member at Kaiser Permanente |
The rate of errors in the health care system – errors which can result in patient harm -- is far higher than the rate of error that would be tolerated in other sectors of the economy:
- Health-care-associated infections are linked to 99,000 deaths each year
- Preventable errors cause as many as 98,000 deaths a year
- Medication errors cause an estimated 7,000 deaths a year
An Institute of Medicine report highlighting the dangers posed to American patients by medical errors notes that improvements in these statistics have been painfully slow. From 2000 to 2005, patient safety improved at an annual rate of only 1 percent.
Across the country and across California, the underuse, overuse and misuse of medical services result in uneven quality, the potential for harm to patients, and a waste of resources, even as escalating health-care costs threaten families and businesses with bankruptcy. Evidence-based medicine aims to eliminate the underuse, overuse and misuse of health-care services by helping patients get the care they need, when they need it, and avoid care they do not need or do not want.