is related to, or knows someone who is the victim of medical malpractice.  Conservative estimates have the rate of medical malpractice deaths at around 100,000 annually. Other estimates range to over half a million.
          Lucien Leape, M.D., a professor of Public Health at Harvard University and retired pediatric surgeon, published what is still the most comprehensive study of medical malpractice in the United States (see A Measure of Malpractice, Harvard University Press, 1993). In response to Dr. Leape’s landmark statistical analysis, in which he documented that upwards of 100,000 people lose their lives each and every year to medical error, the American Medical Association developed the National Patient Safety Foundation whose mission it is to study and improve the safety of patients in the healthcare system.  The NPSF quickly announced that it was “system dysfunction” that was at the root of medical error. But in our opinion, the NPSF has basically been an attempt of organized medicine to preserve the status quo of the American healthcare system, particularly its financial structure, while tinkering at its margins. 

       Organized medicine is most concerned that the public be convinced that it is able to manage its own shop and effectively deal with the problems in healthcare delivery without government intervention and regulation. By far the most elaborate initiative in this regard is that mounted by Dr. Donald Berwick, founder of the Institute of Healthcare Improvement (IHI).

      On June 14, 2006, Dr. Berwick announced that IHI’s “100,000 lives" campaign had succeeded. Eighteen months previously he had enlisted the cooperation of 3,100 hospitals in following a 6-step plan to reduce the amount of lethal medical error.  These simple steps included preventing respirator pneumonia, preventing IV-catheter infections,

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