A new study released by the World Health Organization (WHO) found that poor quality healthcare impedes national progress, regardless of a country’s overall wealth.

The UN’s public health agency found that misdiagnoses, avoidable medication errors, hospital-acquired infections, care delivery inefficiencies, inadequate facilities and inadequate provider training negatively affect population health outcomes in all countries at similar rates.

In high-income countries, the study’s authors reported, approximately 10% of patients are harmed in some way over the course of care delivery. Likewise, among low-income and middle-income nations, the average hospital-acquired infection rate stands at 1 in 10 patients.

The agency also found that approximately 15% of hospital expenditures in high-income countries result from medical mistakes or healthcare-associated infections.

“Good health is the foundation of a country’s human capital, and no country can afford low-quality or unsafe healthcare,” World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim was quoted in the WHO’s release.

Get the full story here, from UPI’s Sommer Brokaw.