Exhibit 167

To Err Is Human: Building a Safer Health System

Exhibit 167 · Consensus report

To Err Is Human: Building a Safer Health System

When extrapolated to the over 33.6 million admissions to U.S. hospitals in 1997, the results of the study in Colorado and Utah imply that at least 44,000 Americans die each year as a result of medical errors.

Estimated that medical errors cause 44,000 to 98,000 deaths a year among patients in US hospitals, extrapolating from two earlier adverse-event studies. Later literature cites the range as the common estimate of preventable inpatient deaths.

Source: Institute of Medicine (National Academies)
Date: 1999
Quoted from: Executive Summary, opening section (National Academies Press, To Err Is Human)
Grade: Primary record
Document: https://nap.nationalacademies.org/read/9728/chapter/2
Accessed: 2026-11-09
Cited by: Findings citing this exhibit
Note: Figure and method taken from Rodwin et al. (2020), which restates the range in its abstract.

Cited by

Finding MED-9.1: Peer-reviewed Published estimates of US deaths caused by medical care range from about 22,000 to about 251,000 a year. The range comes from what each study counts.
Finding MED-9.4: Open question No direct, contemporary study measures how many US hospital deaths are preventable. Every national figure is an extrapolation from small, old or foreign samples.