Table 3

Relative risk of negligent adverse event for a specific medical condition becoming a claim

Disease or injury category	Error (indefensible)		Office visits to primary care for this condition		Relative risk
Disease or injury category	No	Proportion of all error claims*	Weighted office visits	Proportion of all office visits**	Proportion of error claims/proportion office visits
*Denominated by 5921 error claims.
**Denominated by 5 189 903 572 office visits for all conditions (weighted), 1980–1999.
A relative risk of >1 means that it appears in error related claims relatively more often than patient office visits; a relative risk of <1 means that it appears in error related claims relatively less often than patient office visits; a relative risk of 1 means that error related claims and office visits are the same.
Acute myocardial infarction	269	0.045432	3248893	0.000626003	72.57
Lung cancer	166	0.028036	3580812	0.000689957	40.63
Breast cancer	147	0.024827	6780949	0.001306566	19.00
Colon cancer	145	0.024489	3346139	0.00064474	37.98
Brain damaged infant	115	0.019422	102915	1.98298E-05	979.45
Appendicitis	95	0.016045	160152	3.08584E-05	519.94
Meningitis	80	0.013511	2399513	0.000462343	29.22
Pulmonary embolism	79	0.013342	1938023	0.000373422	35.73
Diabetes	72	0.01216	149593203	0.028823889	0.42
Symptoms involving abdomen and pelvis	71	0.011991	8172013	0.001574598	7.62