Patient safety incidents drain billions from providers
Nearly one million patient-safety incidents occurred among Medicare patients over the years 2006-2008, costing U.S. hospitals $8.9 billion.
The seventh annual study of patient safety by HealthGrades, an independent healthcare ratings organization, found that one in 10 Medicare patients – 99,180 individuals – who experienced a patient-safety incident died as a result.
HealthGrades “Patient Safety in American Hospitals” evaluated 39.5 million hospitalization records from nearly 5,000 nonfederal hospitals using indicators developed by the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. The study tracks trends in a range of patient safety incidents and identifies hospitals that are in the top 5 percent in the nation.
“This annual study documents the state of patient safety for hospitals to benchmark against and provides individuals with objective information with which to evaluate local hospitals,” said Rick May, MD, a vice president at HealthGrades and co-author of the study. “It is disheartening, however, to see that the numbers have not changed since last year’s study and, in fact, certain patient safety incidents, such as post-operative sepsis, are on the rise.”
Patients at hospitals in the top 5 percent experienced 43 percent fewer patient safety incidents, on average, compared to poorly performing hospitals. The study authors claim that if all hospitals performed at this level, 218,572 patient safety incidents and 22,590 deaths could potentially have been avoided, saving $2 billion from 2006-2008.
Other research suggests that preventing patient injury reduces healthcare costs.
A recent RAND Corporation study discovered that reducing the number of preventable patient injuries in California hospitals from 2001-2005 was associated with a corresponding drop in malpractice claims against physicians.
“These findings suggest that putting a greater focus on improving safety performance in healthcare settings could benefit medical providers as well as patients,” said Michael Greenberg, the study’s lead author and a behavioral scientist with RAND, a nonprofit research organization.
The RAND study was the first to demonstrate a link between improving performance on 20 well-established indicators of medical safety outcomes and lower medical malpractice claims. It analyzed information for approximately 365,000 adverse safety events, such as post-surgical problems and hospital-acquired infections, and for approximately 27,000 malpractice claims, all of which occurred during 2001-2005.
The study found a significant connection between the annual frequency of adverse events and the number of malpractice claims made.
Under the model created by researchers, a California county that experienced 10 fewer safety events in a given year would also expect to see a reduction of 3.7 malpractice claims during the same year, said Amelia Haviland, a RAND statistician.
Patient safety events are common at U.S. hospitals. Between 2006 and 2008 there were 958,202 total patient safety events among Medicare beneficiaries, representing 2.29 percent of the 39.5 million Medicare admissions.
Evidence that safety performance has a direct link to malpractice claims suggests that policy interventions designed to boost safety also might have the effect of improving the malpractice litigation climate.
