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Medical error

A medical error is a preventable adverse effect of care ("iatrogenesis"), whether or not it is evident or harmful to the patient. This might include an inaccurate or incomplete diagnosis or treatment of a disease, injury, syndrome, behavior, infection, or other ailment.

Medical error is the "third leading cause of death" in the United States. This canard stems from an erroneous 2016 study which, according to , "has taken on a life of its own" and fuelled "a myth promulgated by both quacks and academics".[153]

David Gorski

"Bad apples" or incompetent health care providers are a common cause. (Although human error is commonly an initiating event, the faulty care delivery process invariably permits or compounds the harm and so is the focus of improvement.)

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High-risk procedures or medical specialties are responsible for most avoidable adverse events. (Although some mistakes, such as in surgery, are harder to conceal, errors occur in all levels of care. Even though complex procedures entail more risk, adverse outcomes are not usually due to error, but to the severity of the condition being treated.)[46][154] However, United States Pharmacopeia has reported that medication errors during the course of a surgical procedure are three times more likely to cause harm to a patient than those occurring in other types of hospital care.[47]

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If a patient experiences an adverse event during the process of care, an error has occurred. (Most medical care entails some level of risk, and there can be complications or side effects, even unforeseen ones, from the underlying condition or from the treatment itself.)

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Some common misconceptions about medical error include:

(2002). Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science. New York: Metropolitan Books. ISBN 978-0-8050-6319-6.

Gawande, Atul

Wachter, Robert; Shojania, Kaveh (2004). . New York: Rugged Land. ISBN 978-1-59071-016-6.

Internal Bleeding: The Truth Behind America's Terrifying Epidemic of Medical Mistakes

Banja, John (2005). . Boston: Jones and Bartlett. ISBN 978-0-7637-8361-7.

Medical Errors and Medical Narcissism

Porter, Michael E.; Olmsted Teisberg, Elizabeth (2006). . Boston: Harvard Business School Press. ISBN 978-1-59139-778-6.

Redefining Health Care: Creating Value-Based Competition on Results

Gibson, Rosemary; Prasad Singh, Janardan (2003). . Washington D.C.: Regnery. ISBN 978-0-89526-112-0.

Wall of Silence: The Untold Story of the Medical Mistakes That Kill and Injure Millions of Americans

Alldred D.P.; Standage C.; Zermansky A.G.; Jesson B.; Savage I.; Franklin B.D.; Barber N.; Raynor D.K. (2008). . International Journal of Pharmacy Practice. 16 (5): 317–323. doi:10.1211/ijpp.16.5.0007. S2CID 71701489.

"Development and validation of criteria to identify medication-monitoring errors in care home residents"

Committee on Identifying and Preventing Medication Errors; Board on Health Care Services (2007). . National Academies Press. ISBN 978-0-309-10147-9.

Preventing medication errors

Tewari, A.; Palm, B.; Hines, T.; Royer, T.; Alexander, E. (2014). . Journal of Anaesthesiology Clinical Pharmacology. 30 (2): 263–266. doi:10.4103/0970-9185.130055. PMC 4009652. PMID 24803770.

"VEINROM: A possible solution for erroneous intravenous drug administration"