US Senator Fighting to Eliminate Preventable Hospital Deaths by 2020

As California voters will vote on a medical malpractice initiative that will increase the restrictive caps paid on medical malpractice cases this November, US Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) is calling for the elimination of all preventable hospital deaths by the year 2020. Boxer is a supporter of the Patient Safety Movement Foundation which is spearheading the effort to eliminate deaths in hospitals that are deemed preventable. “This is not the time to sit back and do nothing when we have hundreds of thousands of deaths each year,” Boxer said during a news conference at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center. “We have the opportunity to save hundreds of thousands of lives each year.” Preventable deaths attributable to medical errors are the third leading cause of death in the nation behind heart disease and cancer.