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Thank
you, Mr. Chairman for holding this important hearing to discuss medical errors.
Patient
safety is, and should always be, an important concern for our committee.
Government policies should always promote and encourage America’s
companies to produce products and services that reduce the incidents of consumer
harm or error. This is not only
sound public policy, but good business sense.
Competition drives innovation, and it is this impetus that has made
America the world leader in new solutions to help people live longer and better.
Two
years ago, the House Commerce Committee held a joint hearing with the Committee
on Veterans Affairs to focus on the problem of medical errors.
This hearing followed the release of the Institute of Medicine’s
November 1999 report, To Err Is Human.
In that report, the IOM estimated that at least 44,000 Americans die each
year as a result of medical errors, and that the number may be as high as
98,000. If accurate,
medical errors cause a greater number of deaths than motor vehicle accidents,
breast cancer, or AIDS. Even more
alarming, we may or may not be properly accounting for all of the medical errors
that occur on a minute-to-minute basis or taking the appropriate steps to reduce
their occurrence.
Human
error is, by definition, unavoidable. We
may not be able to achieve perfection, but we must strive to ensure that when a
medical error occurs, the harm it causes to a patient is minimized.
Today, we have an outstanding panel of witnesses who understand clearly
that patient safety is the bottom line for their businesses.
They represent companies which have a broad range of approaches to
addressing the medical error problem. What
is most exciting is that these witnesses represent merely a glimpse of some of
the incredible collaborative efforts underway within the health care community
that are creating new technologies and improving the delivery of services for
patient safety.
Today,
we have an opportunity to learn from the witnesses about the steps their
businesses and non-profit organizations have taken since the publication of the
IOM report. Though the
recommendations of the Institute of Medicine were numerous, they certainly gave
both the public and private sector a clear starting point for some serious
discussion of how to comprehensively achieve better patient safety.
Three of our five witnesses represent organizations that originally
testified before this committee two years ago.
I am most interested to hear from you all about the advances that have
been made since then.
The
federal government is an important player in our efforts to improve patient
safety. Our public policies
directly affect the ability of the private sector to conduct their business.
The federal government currently maintains and operates numerous
reporting systems and databases to help track medical errors and prevent their
reoccurrence. The federal
government also champions research to evaluate and determine the options
available to address health care improvement.
We must constantly examine these programs to enhance their efficiency and
ensure that we are not trampling on the private sector’s ability to innovate.
The private sector represents our best opportunity to reduce the
occurrence of medical error. We
should ensure that any legislation we advance emphasizes that point.
Today,
I would also like to take a moment to recognize a true leader in this field,
John Eisenberg, former Director of the Agency for Health Care Research and
Quality who recently passed away. His
tireless determination and dedication to this issue will be sorely missed.
Thank
you, again, Mr. Chairman for holding this hearing. It’s nice to take a break--albeit temporarily--from our
work on Medicare and focus on another important issue.
We have so many priorities at this Committee. I’m excited that we are addressing such an important issue.
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