Internal bleeding : the truth behind America's terrifying epidemic of medical mistakes / Robert M. Wachter, Kaveh G. Shojania.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 390-428) and index.

A New Epidemic -- The System -- The Wrong Patient -- It's The System, Stupid -- Jumbo Jets Crashing -- The Errors of Our Way -- Doctors' Handwriting and Other Prescribing Errors -- The Forgotten Half of Medication Errors -- Solving the Riddle -- Of Life and Limb -- Did We Forget Something? -- Practice Makes Perfect -- Handoffs and Fumbles -- See One, Do One, Teach One -- Hubris and Teamwork -- The Other End of the Stethoscope -- Consequences -- Spilling the Beans -- Whether Reports? -- Malpractice -- Accountability -- Cures -- Attacking a New Disease -- What Can Policymakers Do? -- A Culture of Safety -- A system of Safety -- What Can Patients Do? -- List of the Seventeen Individual Errors in the Wrong Patient Case -- Dangerous Abbreviations Used in Prescribing -- Examples of Easily Confused Sound-Alike or Look-Alike Drugs.

Two doctors and experts in the study of patient safety and hospital quality provide a close-up look at the medical errors that occur in America's overburdened, underinsured, and often unaccountable health-care system.