Abstract
Objective: Medical errors represent a leading cause of patient morbidity and mortality. The aim of this study was to quantitatively analyze the existing scientific literature on medical errors in order to gain new insights in this important medical research area.Study Design: Web of Science database was used to identify relevant publications, and bibliometric analysis was performed to quantitatively analyze the identified articles for prevailing research themes, contributing journals, institutions, countries, authors, and citation performance.Results: In total, 12,415 publications concerning medical errors were identified and quantitatively analyzed. The overall ratio of original research articles to reviews was 8.1:1, and temporal subset analysis revealed that the share of original research articles has been increasing over time. The United States contributed to nearly half (46.4%) of the total publications, and 8 of the top 10 most productive institutions were from the United States, with the remaining 2 located in Canada and the United Kingdom. Prevailing (frequently mentioned) and highly impactful (frequently cited) themes were errors related to drugs/medications, applications related to medicinal information technology, errors related to critical/intensive care units, to children, and mental conditions associated with medical errors (burnout, depression).Conclusions: The high prevalence of medical errors revealed from the existing literature indicates the high importance of future work invested in preventive approaches. Digital health technology applications are perceived to be of great promise to counteract medical errors, and further effort should be focused to study their optimal implementation in all medical areas, with special emphasis on critical areas such as intensive care and pediatric units.
Highlights
Medical errors are a leading cause of patient morbidity and mortality
The same study revealed that errors related to drugs (25%) and other treatments (24%) were the largest sources of preventable patient harm, and incidents were more likely to occur in advanced specialties in comparison to general hospitals [2]
12,415 publications concerning medical errors were indexed in Web of Science (WoS), dating back to 1961 and accumulating gradually ever since, surpassing 1,000 total publications in 2003 and 10,000 in 2017 (Figure 1)
Summary
Medical errors are a leading cause of patient morbidity and mortality. Recent mortality analysis in the United States ranked medical errors as the third major cause of death, following heart disease and cancer, which were ranked on the first and second place, respectively [1]. A recent meta-analysis of 70 studies involving a total of 337,025 patients revealed that the average rate of preventable patient harm was 6%, of which 12% was severe or led to death [2]. The same study revealed that errors related to drugs (25%) and other treatments (24%) were the largest sources of preventable patient harm, and incidents were more likely to occur in advanced specialties (intensive care or surgery) in comparison to general hospitals [2]. Aside from patient harms and suffering, medical errors contribute to adverse mental and emotional effects on patient relatives and involved healthcare providers [3]. Medical errors result in significant economic burden due to additional healthcare costs and lost productivity from missed workdays [4]
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