Senators Joe Lieberman (D-CT), Chuck Grassley (R-IA), and Bob Kerrey (D-NE) have sent letters to the heads of the Office of Personnel Management and the Departments of Health and Human Services, Defense, and Veterans Affairs, asking how the agencies would be responding to the recommendations for mandatory reporting and other reforms made by the Institute of Medicine. The IOM's recommendations were included in a groundbreaking report indicating that between 44,000 and 98,000 Americans die each year from medical errors.
"We are concerned that many of the deaths and serious injuries occur in federal programs including Medicare, Medicaid, the Federal Employees Benefits program, Veterans Health, and the Department of Defense's health care program ? Tricare," the Senators wrote last week.
"In all, these programs account for almost half of the health care expenditures in the United States and cover approximately 90 million beneficiaries. Total deaths in these programs may number in the tens of thousands each year."
The Senators said they were particularly concerned by a report in The New York Times indicating that federal officials have already rejected one of the key recommendations made in the IOM report ? requiring hospitals to report all error-related deaths and serious injuries.
As a result, the Senators asked for information pertaining to the agencies' respective programs and their plans, including: 1) How many preventable deaths occur each year, and projections for this year; 2) Explanations for their decisions to reject or accept the IOM's recommendations, particularly on mandatory reporting; and 3) How they plan to meet the IOM's overriding goal for reducing preventable medical errors by 50 percent over the next five years.
Lieberman, Grassley, and Kerrey are all high-ranking members of the Senate committees that oversee the main federal health programs ? Lieberman is Ranking Member on Governmental Affairs, Grassley is Chairman of the Aging panel, and Kerrey is a senior member on Finance. A few weeks ago they announced their intention to introduce bipartisan legislation to implement several of the reforms the IOM report advocated.
Also signing at least one of the letters sent to the four agencies were several other senior members on the relevant committees, including: Assistant Majority Leader and Finance member Don Nickles (R-OK), Finance members Bob Graham (D-FL) and Richard Bryan (D-NV), and Armed Services member Olympia Snowe (R-ME).