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Comment by thegasman | Hacker News Reader

Note the paper's definition of medical error: "Medical error has been defined as an unintended act (either of omission or commission) or one that does not achieve its intended outcome,3 the failure of a planned action to be completed as intended (an error of execution), the use of a wrong plan to achieve an aim (an error of planning),4 or a deviation from the process of care that may or may not cause harm to the patient."

That's quite broad

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This disclaimer needs to be included in any conversation about this study. In the same week that John Oliver ranted on the dangers of misleading scientific studies[1] we see headlines like "Medical error in hospitals is the third leading cause of death in the U.S." with no mention of the fact that this study qualifies an "error" as anytime a doctor isn't a perfect healing machine.

[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Rnq1NpHdmw

Is it? Those all seem like pretty reasonable types of error. Ultimately they have to have contributed to the death of a patient to be included. If one of those things contributed to someone's death, I don't think i'd hesitate to call that a 'medical error'.

> one that does not achieve its intended outcome

I struggle to see how there are any deaths inside a hospital that don't fall into this category. E.g. a cancer patient on chemo therapy who doesn't make it would seem to qualify.

Realistically I assume this means that they count whatever they want as medical error, with no good rules.

I don't think your example would qualify unless a real error was made e.g. the chemo killed them so there was a planning error in putting them on chemo. The truth is that many people with cancer will not survive. In those cases, chemo is not about saving their lives, just extending them.

You're saying what it should be but the parent comments are talking about what it actually says. Specifically, "one that does not achieve its intended outcome".

I'm arguing that the "intended outcome" isn't always complete recovery. If a patient with terminal cancer dies, that doesn't necessarily mean that the chemo didn't achieve its intended outcome.

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