A different planet

A different planetA front-page Wall Street Journal article describes how complex software is causing glitches on modern airliners and the steps manufacturers and airlines are taking to fix the problems. The safety culture and record of the airline industry is sometimes cited by advocates of improved patient safety. But with all the problems, are airplanes really that much safer than hospitals? Absolutely.Get this:

In North America, there were 1.3 crashes per million departures in the late 1980s. By 2004 and 2005, the average figure was about 0.4, meaning the chance a plane now taking off will crash is less than one in two million.

Can you imagine a safety record like that in health care? Major and minor errors occur all the time, and the equivalent "crash rate" is orders of magnitude higher than one in two million.