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Medical Errors Proving Costly

by Rajashri on Jul 29 2008 2:59 PM

A study by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality has found that decreasing medical errors in the country would reduce healthcare costs by as much as 30 percent besides reducing loss of life.

The study examined insurance claims of 5.6 million enrollees from 2001 to 2002 and found that medical errors do not necessarily occur within the hospital only.

"Many hospitals are struggling to survive financially," study co-author William Encinosa said in a statement. "The point of our paper is that the cost savings from reducing medical errors are much larger than previously thought."

The report said that adding more nursing staff may be one of the ways to reduce medical errors. The details appear in the journal Health Services Research.

Source-Medindia
RAS/L


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