Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States, followed by cancer. What is the third leading cause of death? According to one recent study: medical mistakes. The Institute of Medicine published a report titled "To Err Is Human", stating that the number of deaths every year due to errors in hospitals comes to about 98,000. That was in 1999, but it is still a number that most people will throw around as if it were authoritative. A new study, however, claims that the true number of these preventable deaths is much, much higher. The Journal of Patient Safety has reported that the number of these fatalities is no less than 210,000 patients, and could be as high as 440,000 people annually.

According to the Scientific American, a NASA toxicologist was one of the key people to come up with these latest figures. He also heads Patient Safety America, an advocacy group. He has written a book covering his 19-year-old son's death, which he blames on a hospital's negligence.

Are his approximated statistics reliable? Per ProPublica's request, distinguished researchers went over this new study and found that the methods and conclusions were sound. The American Hospital Association still holds that the Institute of Medicine's lower estimates are more credible. There is no official verdict on which figures to believe, as they are all estimates. There is no concrete record of these fatality numbers, and it is not as if hospitals are eager to provide hard data about their fatal errors.

The study worked from the data collected by four other newly released studies, which looked at the number of "adverse events" at hospitals, mining medical records for the data. The studies looked at the records for more than 4,200 hospital patients from 2002 to 2008. The studies discovered that 21 percent of cases involved "serious adverse events", and 1.4 percent of cases were "lethal adverse events". These rates were then applied to the 34 million people hospitalized in 2007, producing the estimate of 210,000 preventable patient deaths. The higher estimate of 440,000 deaths would mean that almost 16 percent of fatalities in America are from hospital error. Justifying the higher estimate, the NASA toxicologist pointed to research that the amount of negligence that is reported is much lower than the real number, due to how hospitals and peer-review panels report instances of malpractice.

One Harvard doctor who worked on the report "To Err Is Human" affirmed these recent, higher findings. He admitted that the people behind the report were using calculations that have now become outdated, and even back then, they understood that their approximation was on the low side. Other doctors have cited this study as a reason to heighten awareness across the country, for patients as well as for policy makers. Many are calling for reformed regulations that will promote transparency in the health care system. According to these physicians, the statistic of 98,000 deaths is much lower than is accurate. Other people have countered that the tools used in the studies are not accurate when used on a nationwide scale, but are only appropriate to estimate figures at individual hospitals.

One doctor quoted by the Scientific American has stated that it does not matter which estimates are correct. The bottom line: "way too many people are being harmed by unintentional medical error," he said, "and it needs to be corrected."

While not every mistake constitutes negligence, with such high rates of error, this means that there are too many instances of medical malpractice. And these statistics do not even cover injuries and illnesses inflicted by negligent medical professionals. If you or a loved one are one of the thousands who have been harmed by medical malpractice, then do not wait to act. Your case can expire, leaving you without the compensation that you deserve. Contact a medical malpractice attorney today.