Medical errors costing U.S. billions

The latest Patient Safety in American Hospitals Study shows that from 2004 through 2006, patient safety errors resulted in 238,337 potentially preventable deaths of Medicare patients and cost the Medicare program $8.8 billion. The analysis found that patients treated at top-performing hospitals were, on average, 43 percent less likely to experience one or more medical errors than patients at the poorest-performing hospitals.