Alliance for Patient Safety

                            All that is necessary for the triumph of evil...
                                                                ... is for good men to do nothing.

                                                                                                   Edmund Burke

The Big Picture: Effects of Lack of Reliable Quality Control in Hospitals

  1. In search of the “Black Box” for a reliable and cost-effective quality control of the delivery of medical care - 2/2006 by Gil N. Mileikowsky, M.D.  read article

  2. The Economic Impact of Lack of Quality Controls. Medical errors translate into $750 billion to $1.75 trillion wiped out of the US economy - article originally from fastcures.org and diagram modified from "In Search of the Black Box" by Dr. Mileikowsky (see item #1 above)
    Download PDF File

  3. Safety, Efficiency and Flexibility – Convergent or Mutually Exclusive Goals in Healthcare Design Presentation by Paul Barach, MD, MPH - Clalit Seminar, October 1 2013 - View Presentation Slides

  4. Organizations "supposed" to monitor hospital's quality of delivery of care
    Download PDF File

  5. Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations and Subsidiaries (JCAHO)
    History and Financial Statements

    How Peer Review Failed at Redding Medical Center,
    Why It Is Failing Across the Country and What Can Be Done About It

    Submitted to the U.S. Senate Finance Subcommittee on Health Care by
    Gerald N. Rogan, M.D., Frank Sebat, M.D., and Ian Grady, M.D., September 22, 2008
    Read Report
    Read Press Release

  6. Across USA, anxiety over access to patient records
    USA Today 4/29/2008, by Robert Davis
    Read Article

  7. GAO Report (July 2004) - CMS Needs Additional Authority to Adequately Oversee Patient Safety in Hospitals The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) regularly missed serious problems and put patients at risk, according to this GAO study.
    Download PDF File

  8. Deadly errors and politics betray a hospital's promise
    LA Times Pulitzer Prize Winning Series on King/Drew County Hospital - December 5, 2004
    Read LA Times Series
    Read LA Jewish Journal Article

  9. U.S. Department of Justice Recovers Fraud from HCA and Tenet
    Read More

  10. From NewYorker.com: The Personal Toll of Whistle-Blowing - Why one physician took the risk of becoming an F.B.I. informant to expose alleged Medicare fraud.
    Read More

  11. Patient Safety in American Hospitals July 2004 HealthGrades Study documents evidence that nearly 600,000 patients die of medical errors in hospitals every three years.
    Download PDF File

  12. To Err Is Human — And Costly: Addressing The Potential Effects On Litigation Of So-Called "Never Events" - Health Lawyers Weekly, December 19, 2008
    Read Article

  13. Medical Errors Still Claiming Many Lives - USA Today 5/18/2005 Article quotes Harvards Lucian Leape as saying, “We have to turn the heat up on the hospitals." Summarizes 5/18/05 JAMA article by Professor Leape.
    Read USA Today and JAMA Articles
    See Why Pay for Mistakes - Boston Globe - 8/23/2007

  14. Many docs have kept quiet on errors, incompetence: study
    from Modern Physician Online - Story posted: December 3, 2007
    Read Article

  15. OVERTREATED: Why Too Much Medicine is Making Us Sicker and Poorer selected by New York Times Business Columnist, David Leonhardt
    as the No 1 Book of the Year.
    Read More

  16. The First National Report Card on Quality of Health Care in America.
    2006 Rand Corporation report finding that all adults in the United States are at risk for receiving poor health care, no matter where they live; why, where, and from whom they seek care; or what their race, gender, or financial status is.
    Read Document

  17. Internal Bleeding The Truth Behind America's Terrifying Epidemic of Medical Mistakes by Robert Wachter, M.D. and Kaveh G. Shojania, M.D.
    Read More

  18. Nutrition Institute of America Study concludes 784,000 people die annually due to medical mistakes. Study is based on 152 published peer review articles.
    Read Abstract
    View Summary Tables
    Read Full Study

  19. Critical Condition: How Health Care in American Became Big Business and Bad Medicine, by Donald L. Bartlett & James B. Steele, excerpts regarding number of deaths caused by medical error, between 225,000 and 257,000 per year.
    Download PDF File

  20. Money-Driven Medicine: The Real Reason Health Care Costs So Much
    by Maggie Mahar
    Read More from Amazon.com
    Read More from HealthBeat Blog

  21. Who Killed Health Care?: America's $2 Trillion Medical Problem-and the Consumer-Driven Cure by Regina Herzlinger, Professor, Harvard Business School
    Read More

  22. Letters to elected officials urging Congress to extend "whistleblower" protection to all physicians
    Read More

  23. Fatal Medical Errors Said to Be More Widespread By Paul Davies, The Wall Street Journal - Jul 27, 2004
    Read Abstract

  24. How to Keep the Hospital From Making You Sicker Wall Street Journal 9/11/2003
    Download PDF File

  25. "Unhealthy Diagnosis" - Exposes Unnecessary Heart Surgeries at Tenet Facility in Redding, CA CBSNews.com
    Article #1 and Article #2

  26. JCAHO Patients' Safety Standards - Transcript of Presentation by JCAHO President, Dennis O'Leary, MD, concludes that there is no incentive for CEOs to achieve higher quality of care as it would reduce revenues for hospitals - 11/24/2002
    Download Transcript in PDF Format

  27. Rape of the Medical Peer Review Process by TENET Health System by Gil N. Mileikowsky, M.D. 11/24/2002
    Download Transcript in PDF Format

  28. Transcript of Quarterly Meeting of Medical Board of California - 11/9/2002
    Download Transcript in PDF Format

  29. "Clinical Peer Review or Competitive Hatchet Job." Examines how Peer-Review is used as a tool to eliminate economic competitors. by William W. Parmley, M.D., M.A.C.C. Journal of the American College of Cardiology Vol. 36, No. 7, 2000.
    Download Article in PDF Format

  30. HB 2371 - Patient safety bill passed Pennsylvania State House but died in Senate
    Download Article in PDF Format