The Institute of Medicine’s (IOM) report To Err is Human: Building a Safer Health System estimated that medical errors contributed to 44,000 to 98,000 deaths in the US. This commentary argues the estimates included in the IOM and other studies are overestimated, and that patient safety advocates should shift the focus from estimating deaths due to medical error to preventing patient harm due to hospital-acquired infections, procedural complications, medication errors, and diagnostic errors