The Third Leading Cause of Death: What if Medical Error Were Treated Like Heart Disease and Cancer?

​If death certificates treated medical error as they treat a disease, medical error would be the third most frequent cause of death in the United States, said a study published in the May 3, 2016 issue of BMJ. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) uses death certificates to compile its list of the most common causes of death, but the certificates rely on assigning International Classification of Disease (ICD) codes and thus human and system factors are not captured. Moving away from the ICD code requirement, the authors said, would create more awareness and better inform healthcare research. The most commonly cited estimate of annual deaths from medical error, the authors said, is not based on primary research and is "limited and outdated."