The US Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) issued a press release that describes the financial cost of medical errors related to surgery. It seems that, in addition to these errors costing lives, they also cost about $1.5 billion every year.

The AHRQ analysis involved data gleaned from more than 161,000 cases of surgery performed in 2001 and 2002. All surgical patients were covered by healthcare insurance they purchased from their employers.

Medical errors jeopardize the health of the patient but they also increase the cost of the hospital stay and recovery period after release. The AHRQ provided a list of the added average expenses related to some of the more typical medical complications that resulted from errors related to surgery. These figures represent the average expense per case the following medical errors added to the overall expense of an individual surgery:

• Acute respiratory failure increased medical expenses by $28,218, or 52% of the cost of the surgery
• Post-operative infections cost $19,480, or 48%
• Pressure ulcers (bed sores) and hip fractures cost $12,196 (33%)
• Metabolic issues such as uncontrolled blood sugar and kidney failure cost $11,797 (32%)
• Pulmonary and vascular problems such as blood clots cost $7,838 (25%)
• Opening wounds cost $1,426 (6%)

The AHRQ also reports that for every 10 surgical patients, one of them died during the first 90 days due to medical errors deemed preventable. One-third of these deaths occurred once the patient was discharged from the hospital.

Dr. Carolyn M. Clancy, director of AHRQ, sees medical errors as a top priority in our healthcare system and feels that eliminating them is an important step to controlling the emotional and physical effects of the errors as well as the financial consequences they incur.

The AHRQ published the details of its study in the Health Services Research journal’s July 28 issue.