Hospital injuries: little or no improvement over 10 years - — NEJM

Ten years ago, in the landmark report To Err is Human the Institute of Medicine reported the high rates of medical injuries - and low rates of malpractice actions.  Reform was promised.  A survey of 10 North Carolina hospitals shows that 1 in four hospital patients is harmed due to medical error.  
Temporal Trends in Rates of Patient Harm Resulting from Medical Care — NEJM:

 "In December 1999, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) reported that medical errors cause up to 98,000 deaths and more than 1 million injuries each year in the United States.  In response, accreditation bodies, payers, nonprofit organizations, governments, and hospitals launched major initiatives and invested considerable resources to improve patient safety.  Some interventions have been shown to reduce errors, such as implementing computerized provider order-entry systems, limiting residents' work shifts to 16 consecutive hours,and implementing evidence-based care bundles. However, many of these interventions have not been evaluated rigorously or implemented reliably on a large scale. Unfortunately, it remains unclear whether, in the aggregate, efforts to reduce errors at national, regional, and local levels have translated into significant improvements in the overall safety of patients."