Hospitals Still Not Safe Enough

Medical News Today reports that "Despite increased emphasis on patient safety, little progress has been made in making hospitals safer, says Johns Hopkins critical care specialist Peter Pronovost, M.D., Ph.D., in an article in the Dec. 24 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. He identifies physician autonomy and a lack of standardization of safety protocols as the culprits. . . . According to Pronovost, an average hospitalized adult will receive recommended therapy only 53 percent of the time. This accounts, in part, for the nearly 100,000 patients who die each year in the United States because of hospital error."