When patients seek medical care, they deserve treatment that meets or exceeds the standard of care for the medical profession. Unfortunately, in many cases just the opposite occurs. Because of human error as well as systemic problems, between 44,000 and 98,000 people are killed each year by medical errors in hospitals, according to the National Academies of Sciences. That is more than the number of people who die from car accidents, breast cancer or AIDS. Deaths from medication errors that take place both in and out of hospitals – more than 7,000 annually – exceed those from workplace injuries.