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Patient safety mishaps cost Medicare $8.8 billion

Quality Improvement Monitor, April 11, 2008

Medical errors cost Medicare $8.8 billion and resulted in 238,337 potentially preventable deaths during 2004 through 2006, according to a new HealthGrades study.
The report, which examined 41 million Medicare patient records, also found that patients treated at top performing hospitals had, on average, a 43% lower chance of experiencing one or more medical errors compared to the poorest-performing hospitals.
The study 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.
• Safety incidents decreased almost 5% from 2004 through 2006.
• 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% of incidents. Failure to rescue improved 11.1% during the study period, while both bed sores and postoperative respiratory failure worsened during the study period.

Click here www.healthgrades.com/ for more information

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