Rates of Mortality Due to Medical Harm Have Fallen Over Time

Mortality associated with adverse effects of medical treatment (AEMT) has decreased modestly over the last 25 years, according to the results of a recent study.

Since the first publication of estimates on the extent of medical harm in the United States more than 20 years ago, there have been considerable efforts to improve the safety of patients, according to the authors of the study.

They conducted a cohort study using 1990-2016 data from the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors (GBD) 2016 study, which assessed death certificates in the US.

Overall, there were an estimated 123,603 deaths with AEMT as the underlying cause from 1990 to 2006. While an overall increase in the number of deaths due to AEMT was observed over time, the national age-standardized mortality rate due to AEMT decreased by 21.4% from 1.46 deaths per 100,000 population in 1990 to 1.15 deaths per 100,000 population in 2016. Rates of AEMT mortality were similar among men and women and individuals aged 70 years and older had nearly a 20-fold greater mortality rate than those aged 15 to 49 years.

Surgical and perioperative events accounted for 63.6% of all deaths in which AEMT was the underlying cause.

“This study showed a modest reduction in the death rates from AEMT in the United States from 1990 to 2016 while also observing increased mortality risk with advancing age and certain geographic locations. The annual GBD study releases may allow for tracking of the burden and trend of AEMT over time. In conjunction with other detection systems, the GBD study may provide an increasingly robust assessment of the burden of AEMT across the United States,” the researchers concluded.

—Michael Potts

Reference:

Sunshine JE, Meo N, Kassebaum NJ, et al. Association of adverse effects of medical treatment with mortality in the United States [published online January 18, 2019]. JAMA Netw Open. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2018.7041