44,000 to 98,000 Americans die each year because of medical mistakes

"Medical errors affect a significant proportion of patients. Indeed, the best evidence suggests that roughly 1% of hospitalized patients are victims of bona fide medical malpractice, (59) while another 1% to 1.5% of hospitalized patients are “preventably,” though not necessarily negligently, hurt by the care they receive. (60) Because U.S. hospitals admit roughly 35 million patients each year, preventable errors affect as many as 700,000 Americans annually. (61) Further, some of these injuries are serious. Each year, 44,000 to 98,000 Americans die because of medical mistakes which means that medical errors may cause more deaths per year than all other accident types combined."  

Stanford law Professor Nora Freeman Engstrom
A Dose of Reality for Specialized Courts: Lessons from the VICP University of Pennsylvania Law Review, Vol. 163, p. 1631, 2015, Stanford Public Law Working Paper No. 2623756


See also https://news.stanford.edu/2015/07/06/vaccine-court-engstrom-070615/