Willie Parker loved to entertain a big crowd. So when his wife, Dianne, decided to put together an event to honor her late husband and others who, like him, have died because of medical errors, she opted for an old-fashioned Fourth of July barbecue bash. Had he been there, Willie would have no doubt insisted on manning the grill.

More than 100 people, including the Cover America Tour crew, spent their Independence Day holiday at Dianne's home in Aiken, S.C., at the first South Carolina Patient Safety Day, honoring those harmed by medical errors and those working to improve patient care.

They came from all over—some from as far away as California, New Mexico, and New York, others from just a few towns away. They greeted each other like lifelong friends even though some were meeting for the first time, having built close relationships for months or even years via phone and e-mail.

A diverse group of personalities, they are all bound by the common experience of the loss or harm of someone by a preventable medical mistake: improper medication dosage, hospital-acquired infection, or botched surgery.

Errors like these are responsible for nearly 200,000 deaths each year and more than 2.6 million injuries, making medically induced harm—errors and hospital-acquired infections—the third leading cause of death in the U.S. behind heart disease and cancer.

Many of these victims, or their survivors, are now outspoken advocates for better patient protections. Helen Haskell started a support and advocacy organization called Mothers Against Medical Error after the death of her 15-year-old son, Lewis. Kim Sandstrom is writing and producing a play about the series of errors that led to the death of her duaghter. Others have written books or launched Web sites to tell their stories.

A good number had joined Consumers Union's ongoing patient advocacy campaigns, helping to strengthen laws all across the country to better protect patients. Advocates working with CU's Stop Hospital Infections campaign have achieved victory in 23 states so far by pushing through laws requiring hospitals to publicly report their infection rates. South Carolina's reporting law passed in 2006 with the help of many of those in attendance at the Patient Safety Day. Included were the Toolen family, whose lives have been permanently altered by a MRSA infection, short for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus—that son Jimmy picked up during a surgery and subsequently passed on to his father.

The Cover America Tour filmed their story and many others at the event to ensure that the issues of quality and safety were documented. As the attendees of Patient Safety Day can attest, health care that is affordable but of poor quality can sometimes be worse than having no health care at all.

—Meagen Bohne, campaign organizer