Hospitals can be liable for the negligence of their employees, including staff nurses and technicians. According to a recent report by the Institute of Medicine, medical errors are responsible for at least 44,000 deaths each year in the United States and possibly as many as 98,000 each year.This means that more people die from medical mistakes each year than from breast cancer, highway accidents, or AIDS, the report noted.

According to the report, medical mistakes occur not only in hospitals but in day surgery and outpatient clinics, retail pharmacies, nursing homes, and home care. The report states that medication errors alone contribute to more than 7,000 deaths annually, exceeding those resulting from workplace injuries.

The report cited deficiencies in a number of areas, from illegible writing in medical records to the failure of physicians to regularly retest their competence after receiving their license to practice. The report claims that the health care industry is far behind other high-risk industries, such as the airline industry, in its attention to ensuring basic safety. To address these alarming rates of medical mistakes, the report recommends dramatic changes to the health care system to achieve a minimum goal of a fifty (50%) percent reduction in medical mistakes within five (5) years.