​​​​​Digital Hospital, Inc.

INVEST

In 1999, the Institute of Medicine published the famous “To Err Is Human” report, which dropped a bombshell on the medical community by reporting that up to 98,000 people a year die because of mistakes in hospitals. The number was initially disputed, but is now widely accepted by doctors and hospital officials — and quoted ubiquitously in the media.  Now comes a study in the current issue of the Journal of Patient Safety that says the numbers may be much higher — between 210,000 and 440,000 patients each year who go to the hospital for care, suffer some type of preventable harm that contributes to their death.

That would make medical errors the third-leading cause of death in America, behind heart disease, which is the first, and cancer, which is second.

Cost of Diabetes

Updated March 6, 2013

  • $245 billion: Total costs of diagnosed diabetes in the United States in 2012
  • $176 billion for direct medical costs
  • $69 billion in reduced productivity
  • After adjusting for population age and sex differences, average medical expenditures among people with diagnosed diabetes were 2.3 times higher than what expenditures would be in the absence of diabetes.


(From the study "Economic Costs of Diabetes in the U.S. in 2012")

RELATED HEALTHCARE INDUSTRY FACTS

FACTS FROM THE AMERICAN DIABETES ASSOCIATION:

  • In 2015, 30.3 million Americans, or 9.4% of the population, had diabetes.
  • Approximately 1.25 million American children and adults have type 1 diabetes.
  • In 2015, 84.1 million Americans age 18 and older had prediabetes.
  • Diabetes remains the 7th leading cause of death in the United States in 2015, with 79,535 death certificates listing it as the underlying cause of death, and a total of 252,806 death certificates listing diabetes as an underlying or contributing cause of death.