New study published in the BMJ medical journals: researchers from John Hopkins University School of Medicine estimate deaths from medical errors in the US to be 251,454 each year - about 9.5 percent of all deaths annually in the United States. Data was taken from Medicare and 13 other hospitals.  This makes medical errors the third leading cause of a non-violent death in the U.S., ahead of of chronic lower respiratory disease (147,101 deaths per year in the US) and accidents, stroke and Alzheimer's, according to data from CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention). Number one cause of death is heart disease (614,348 deaths per year in the US), and cancer (591,699 deaths per year in the US).

Martin Makary, a professor of surgery at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine who led the research, said in an interview that the category includes everything from bad doctors to more systemic issues such as communication breakdowns when patients are handed off from one department to another.

"It boils down to people dying from the care that they receive rather than the disease for which they are seeking care," Makary said.

...

The CDC should update its vital statistics reporting requirements so that physicians must report whether there was any error that led to a preventable death, Makary said.

"We all know how common it is," he said. "We also know how infrequently it’s openly discussed."

Kenneth Sands, who directs health care quality at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, an affiliate of Harvard Medical School, said that the surprising thing about medical errors is the limited change that has taken place since the IOM report came out. Only hospital-acquired infections have shown improvement. "The overall numbers haven't changed, and that's discouraging and alarming," he said.

...

Frederick van Pelt,  a doctor who works for The Chartis Group, a health care consultancy, said another element of harm that is often overlooked is the number of severe patient injuries resulting from medical error.

“Some estimates would put this number at 40 times the death rate," van Pelt said. "Again this gets buried in the daily exposure that care providers have around patients who are suffering or in pain that is to be expected following procedures."

(via "Researchers: Medical errors now third leading cause of death in United States", The Washington Post)

Make sure to advocate for yourself and your family/friends.  Ask questions.  Do your research on the hospital and your doctors.