Flagging medical errors and emphasizing lack of punishment by maintaining anonymity leads to more reporting of errors. There are 100,000 deaths from medical errors annually according to the Institute of Medicine (IOM). A study published in the November 21 issue of Pediatrics showed that reports increased from 13 over 2.5 years to 216. However, none of the reports were serious. This translates to me into a remaining lack of transparency with regard to serious medical errors!
The practice of medicine is too difficult for most MDs. That is one of the reasons why there are so many errors and deaths. MDs also don't have sufficient time to do as good a job as they might if they were not working for large HMOs and hospitals.
