The United States Health Care System: Views and Experiences of Adults with Health Problems.

According to the Commonwealth Fund 2002 International Health Policy Survey, U.S. adults who have health problems experience medical errors, care coordination problems, and cost-related access difficulties at high rates. More than one-fourth of sicker adults who were surveyed in the United States said that a medical mistake or medication error had occurred in their care in the past two years, a rate higher than that seen for the four other countries surveyed—ustralia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. Nearly one of five U.S. respondents reported an error had caused serious health problems.

U.S. respondents also reported frequent problems with receiving conflicting information or duplicate tests, or with records or tests not arriving at their doctors' offices in time for appointments. U.S. rates on these indicators of care coordination tended to be the highest in the five-nation survey.