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 to the website for
"Talk About Medical Experiences (T.A.M.E.)". If you
feel helpless and have no one to turn to because of your negative "medical
experience", we want to help you in exercising your patient rights and
privileges. At last, an advocacy and educational group with a vested interest in
helping you understand patient rights and more. T.A.M.E. will diligently and
confidentially advocate on your behalf and assist you with your medical experience.
Patient safety, as it relates to the delivery of health care services, medical mistakes,
and accountability from providers, is a growing concern and must be talked about to bring
about improved safety and effective change throughout our health care system.
Nationally, the Harvard Medical Practice Study estimated that, each year, more than
180,000 people die at least in part, because of medical mistakes -- these go largely
unreported. Every year thousands of people are injured as a result of medical
malpractice. "The medical imperative is clear: to make health care safe we need
to redesign our systems to make errors difficult to commit and create a culture in which
the existence of risk is acknowledged and injury prevention is recognized as everyone's
responsibility," says the editorial, which was signed by Lucian Leape of Harvard
University and five others.
 | MISSION
T.A.M.E. is a nonprofit organization that advocates and publicly targets medical
errors, discrimination, and abuse in the medical care delivery system, to the extent
that recipients and former recipients of medical care may need assistance to support and
protect their rights. Our fundamental mission is to help empower people who have
been the victims of medical errors so that they may learn to independently exercise their
rights. T.A.M.E. is committed to promoting the rights, protection and advocacy of
those who request assistance. We offer solutions and seek both human and material
resources to assist individuals, and have an advisory board consisting of lawyers and
doctors for referral of medical malpractice or negligence cases. T.A.M.E. is engaged
in any activity permitted under the laws of the United States and the District of Columbia
through the promotion of educational activities, which result in educational benefit to
recipients as designated by the corporation. Our goal is to advocate, educate and
promote fairness and equality in America's health care system.
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| T.A.M.E. is comprised of an Executive Board
representing members from the medical, legal, managed care, insurance, religious, and
research disciplines -- each of whom are dedicated to seeking improvement in the delivery
of health care services.
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| A new poll from the nonprofit National Patient
Safety Foundation (NPSF) finds that 42 percent of people say they've been affected by
physician errors, either directly or through a friend or relative. Medical mistakes made
each year could reach $3 million, with total costs as high as $200 billion. Click
on this hyperlink to learn astounding statistics on medical mistakes and view a video
clip. http://archive.abcnews.com/sections/living/medmistakes1009/index.html |
| SOME AMAZING STATISTICS
150,000 to 300,000
Americans are injured or killed each year because
of medical negligence (Wall Street Journal, 1/3/93)
Iatrogenic diseases, generally defined as diseases that result from a physician's action
or in response to a drug, are believed to be a major problem in terms of morbidity and
hospital expense (Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) 12/12/90
Current research suggests that 36%
of physician visits are unnecessary; 36% of hospital admissions are caused by side-effects
from other medical treatments; 53% of surgeries are unnecessary; and half of all time
spent in hospitals isn't medically indicated (Let's Live, 2/95)
Nearly 2 million people, each year, in the U.S. come down
with an infection in a hospital they didn't have when they entered; more than 80,000 of
these die (Let's Live, 6/95)
Harvard researchers studied hospital records from the
state of New
York over a one-year period. They estimated that more then 13,000
New Yorkers were killed and 2,500 permanently disabled due to medical care. More
than 51% of the deaths were blamed on negligence, (New England J. of Medicine, 2/7/91)
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CONTACT INFORMATION
President and Chief
Executive Officer
DR. J. TALBERT
Postal Address
P.O. Box 6850
Washington, DC 20020
Telephone
(202) 678-6038
FAX
(202) 678-8100
E-Mail: tame@tameinc.org
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