Hospital Mistakes Kill 270,491 Medicare Patients in
3 Years, Cost $8.8 Billion
HealthGrades says 238,337 deaths preventable, top
hospitals have 43% lower incident rate
April 8, 2008 – Hospital safety incidents caused
the deaths of 270,491 Medicare patients during the years 2004 through
2006, according to a new report from HealthGrades, which estimates
238,337 of these deaths were potentially preventable. There were more
than a million safety incidents during the three years studied.
HealthGrades
patient safety study shows increase in hospital errors, gaps among
state, hospitals – best hospitals have 43% fewer errors
April 3, 2006 - Patient safety incidents in American
hospitals grew from 1.18 million to 1.24 million among the 40 million
hospitalizations covered under the Medicare program.
Read more...
These patient safety incidents also cost the
federal Medicare program $8.8 billion, according to HealthGrades' fifth
annual Patient Safety in American Hospitals Study.
HealthGrades' analysis of 41 million Medicare
patient records found that patients treated at top-performing hospitals
had, on average, a 43 percent lower chance of experiencing one or more
medical errors compared to the poorest-performing hospitals.
The overall incident rate was approximately three
percent of all Medicare admissions evaluated, accounting for 1.1 million
patient safety incidents during the three years studied.
With the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
scheduled to stop reimbursing hospitals for the treatment of eight major
preventable errors, including objects left in the body after surgery and
certain post-surgical infections, starting October 1, the financial
implications for hospitals are substantial.
The HealthGrades study, which also identifies those
hospitals with patient-safety incidence levels in the lowest five
percent in the nation, also found:
● Medicare patients who experienced a
patient-safety incident had a one-in-five chance of dying as a result of
the incident during 2004 to 2006.
● Overall death rate among Medicare
beneficiaries that developed one or more patient safety incidents
decreased almost five percent from 2004 through 2006.
● However, four indicators, post-operative
respiratory failure, post-operative pulmonary embolism or deep vein
thrombosis, post-operative sepsis, and post-operative abdominal wound
separation/splitting, increased when compared to 2004.
● Medical errors with the highest incidence
rates were bed sores, failure to rescue, and post-operative respiratory
failure and accounted for 63.4 percent of incidents.
>> Failure to rescue improved 11.1 percent during the study period,
while both bed sores and post-operative respiratory failure worsened
during the study period.
● Of the 270,491 deaths that occurred among
patients who developed one or more patient safety incidents, 238,337
were potentially preventable.
If all hospitals performed at the level of
Distinguished Hospitals for Patient Safety™, approximately 220,106
patient safety incidents and 37,214 Medicare deaths could have been
avoided while saving the U.S. approximately $2.0 billion during 2004 to
2006.
“While many U.S. hospitals have taken extensive
action to prevent medical errors, the prevalence of likely preventable
patient safety incidents is taking a costly toll on our health care
systems – in both lives and dollars,” said Dr. Samantha Collier,
HealthGrades' chief medical officer and the primary author of the study.
“HealthGrades has documented in numerous studies
the significant and largely unchanging gap between top- performing and
poor-performing hospitals. It is imperative that hospitals recognize the
benchmarks set by the Distinguished Hospitals for Patient Safety are
achievable and associated with higher safety and markedly lower cost. ”
The fifth annual HealthGrades Patient Safety in
American Hospitals Study applies methodology developed by the U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services' Agency for Healthcare Research
and Quality to identify the incident rates of 16 patient safety
indicators among Medicare patients at virtually all of the nation's
nearly 5,000 nonfederal hospitals.
Additionally, HealthGrades applied its methodology
using 13 patient safety indicators to identify the best-performing
hospitals, or Distinguished Hospitals for Patient Safety™, which
represent the top five percent of all U.S. hospitals.
Ratings for individual hospitals were posted today
to HealthGrades' consumer Web site,
www.healthgrades.com.
The following are the 16 patient-safety incidents
studied:
● Accidental puncture or laceration
● Complications of anesthesia
● Death in low-mortality DRGs
● Decubitus ulcer (bed sores)
● Failure to rescue
● Foreign body left in during procedure
● Iatrogenic pneumothorax
● Selected infections due to medical care
● Post-operative hemorrhage or hematoma
● Post-operative hip fracture
● Post-operative physiologic metabolic derangement
● Post-operative pulmonary embolism or deep vein thrombosis
● Post-operative respiratory failure
● Post-operative sepsis
● Post-operative abdominal wound dehiscence
● Transfusion reaction
Distinguished Hospital Awards and Findings
Of the nearly 5,000 hospitals studied, the
HealthGrades study identified 249 hospitals – those in the top five
percent of all hospitals – to serve as a benchmark against which other
hospitals can be evaluated, naming them Distinguished Hospitals for
Patient Safety.
On average, these hospitals had a 43 percent lower
rate of patient-safety incidents when compared with the
poorest-performing hospitals. If all hospitals performed at the level of
the Distinguished Hospitals for Patient Safety, the study found:
● Approximately 220,106 patient safety
incidents and 37,214 Medicare deaths could have been avoided during 2004
to 2006 and
● More than $2.0 billion of costs could have
been avoided during the three years.
To be ranked in overall patient-safety performance,
hospitals had to be rated in at least 17 of the 27 procedures and
diagnoses rated by HealthGrades and have a current overall HealthGrades
star rating of at least 2.5 out of 5.0.
The final ranking set included 767 teaching
hospitals and 891 non-teaching hospitals. The top 15 percent, or 249
hospitals, were identified as Distinguished Hospitals for Patient
Safety, and represent less than five percent of all U.S. hospitals
examined in the study.
The study says, “...more hospitals than ever are
pledging to report their performance on safe practices and have agreed
to not bill for preventable medical errors. Healthcare professionals are
witnessing that zero defects is in fact possible.
Progress is being seen. We now have convincing case
studies that perfection is possible when will to change and improve is
present and the effort is made to implement new practices.
While these examples illustrate that we have a much
clearer idea of what we need to do, formidable barriers remain. Many in
the industry continue to deny that truly safe care is achievable, thus
the status quo continues, resulting in variation in patient safety in
U.S. hospitals that is large and unpredictable.
Numerous studies, including the 2007 AHRQ National
Healthcare Quality Report (NHQR) assessing the state of hospital quality
and patient safety, conclude and support the findings the progress
remains modest and variation in healthcare quality remains high.”
Health Grades, Inc. (Nasdaq: HGRD) is the leading
healthcare ratings organization, providing ratings and profiles of
hospitals, nursing homes and physicians. Millions of consumers and many
of the nation’s largest employers, health plans and hospitals rely on
HealthGrades’ independent ratings and decision support resources to make
healthcare decisions based on the quality and cost of care. More
information on the company can be found at
http://www.healthgrades.com.
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