By SAURABH JHA

In 1999, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) in their landmark report – To Err is Human – estimated that the number of deaths from medical errors is 44 ,000 to 98, 000. The report ushered the Quality and Safety Movement, which became a dominant force in all hospitals. Yet the number of deaths from medical errors climbed. It is now touted to be the 3rd leading cause of death. How easy is it to precisely quantify the number of deaths from medical errors? Not many physicians challenged the methodologies of the IOM report. Some feared that they’d be accused of “making excuses for doctors.” Many simply didn’t have a sufficient grip on statistics of measurement sciences. One exception was Rodney Hayward – who was then an early career researcher, a measurement scientist, who studied how sensitive the estimates of medical errors were to a range of assumptions.

Saurabh Jha (aka @RogueRad) speaks with Professor Hayward for the Firing Line Podcast about his research in JAMA published in 2001 – Estimating Hospital Deaths Due to Medical Errors: Preventability Is in the Eye of the Reviewer. It was a landmark publication of the time, and its objective methods have stood the test of time.

Rod Hayward a Professor of Public Health and Internal Medicine at the University of Michigan and Co-Director of the Center for Practice Management and Outcomes Research at the Ann Arbor VA HSR&D. He received his training in health services research as a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar at UCLA and at the RAND Corporation, Santa Monica. His current and past work includes studies examining measurement of quality, costs and health status, environmental and educational factors affecting physician practice patterns, quality improvement, and physician decision making. His current work focuses on quality measurement and improvement for chronic diseases, such as diabetes, hypertension and heart disease.

Listen to their conversation on Radiology Firing Line Podcast here.