A study published this week by researchers at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine claims that medical errors in healthcare facilities may now be the third leading cause of death in the United states. The study published in the BMJ, shows how patients are dying from the care they are receiving and not the ailments which they are seeking treatment, with 251,000 people dying annually. Those numbers exceed those of deaths related to accidents, stroke, Alzhiemers, and respiratory disease. Currently, heart disease and cancer lead in the number of deaths in the United States.

Researchers part of the study say the causes are a wide spectrum from bad doctors to communication problems due to patients moving from one department to another and think health care facilities need to stop avoiding the topic. Allegedly the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention do not require reporting of errors in date it collects regarding deaths through billing codes, which aids in keeping this type of information from the public.