medical errors destroy the economic system

[...]A 2006 follow-up to the 1999 Institute of Medicine study found that medication errors are among the most common medical mistakes, harming at least 1.5 million people every year. According to the study, 400,000 preventable drug-related injuries occur each year in hospitals, 800,000 in long-term care settings, and roughly 530,000 among Medicare recipients in outpatient clinics. The report stated that these are likely to be conservative estimates. In 2000 alone, the extra medical costs incurred by preventable drug related injuries approximated $887 million – and the study looked only at injuries sustained by Medicare recipients, a subset of clinic visitors. None of these figures take into account lost wages and productivity or other costs.[...]

Use of rationalization to cover up medical errors

Based on anecdotal and survey evidence, Banja^[76] states that rationalization (making excuses) is very common amongst the medical profession in covering up medical errors. Common excuses made are:

• "Why disclose the error? The patient was going to die anyway."
• "Telling the family about the error will only make them feel worse."
• "It was the patient's fault. If he wasn't so (obese, sick, etc.), this error wouldn't have caused so much harm."
• "Well, we did our best. These things happen."
• "If we're not totally and absolutely certain the error caused the harm, we don't have to tell."
  [...]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_error