Shojania, Kaveh

This risk was dramatized and thrust into the public s awareness by the 1999 lOM report. To Err Is Human Building a Safer Health System/ which states that in any year, 44,000 to 98,000 Americans die because of medical errors. As Robert M. Wachter and Kaveh Shojania explain in their excellent book. Internal Bleeding The Truth Behind America s Terrifying Epidemic of Medical Mistakes, more people die each year in the United States as the result of medical errors than from AIDS and breast cancer combined. Others have pointed out that this terrible outcome is the equivalent number of lives that would be lost if a Boeing 767 full of passengers crashed every day of the year. 

Robert M. Wachter and Kaveh Shojania, Internal Bleeding The Truth Behind America s Terrifying Epidemic of Medical Mistakes (New York Rugged Land, 2005). This book, a must-read for healthcare safety leaders, offers ample facts and ideas and provides an excellent background on the issues involved. 

Kaveh G. Shojania et al., eds. Making Healthcare Safer A Critical Analysis of Patient Safety Practices (Rockville, MD Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 2001). 

Don Berwick, Lucian Leape, Robert Wachter, Kaveh Shojania, and other physicians have campaigned unceasingly for years to improve patient safety. 

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