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National campaign against infections, mistakes yields impressive results

Nurse Leader Weekly, June 26, 2006

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Hospitals have reduced lethal mistakes and breakdowns in care to prevent the unnecessary deaths of more than 120,000 patients in the past 18 months, said leaders of an unprecedented national campaign to improve hospital safety.

About 3,100 hospitals took part in the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) 100,000 Lives Campaign that involved hospitals sharing mortality data and implementing research-tested procedures and techniques that prevent infections and reduce mistakes.

Experts say the cooperative effort was unusual for an industry that traditionally avoids dealing publicly with patient-safety and medical error issues. The IHI announced the campaign's results last week at a hospital conference in Atlanta.

Medical mistakes were the focus of a widely noted 1999 national report that estimated 44,000 to 98,000 Americans die each year from errors. That year, Donald Berwick, a Harvard professor and president of IHI, a Massachusetts-based nonprofit organization, challenged healthcare leaders to improve care quality. In December 2004, he stepped up the challenge by announcing the "100,000 Lives Campaign." He and IHI hoped to sign up at least 2,000 U.S. hospitals in the effort to implement six types of changes, including one to deploy rapid response teams for emergency care of patients whose vital signs suddenly deteriorate.

Campaign workers examined 2004 data for the participating hospitals to determine how many people were expected to die during the 18 months of the campaign. The hospitals were asked to contribute monthly mortality data-before and during the campaign-to IHI , which attempted to track the effect of the interventions. About 86% of hospitals submitted mortality data. Roughly a third said they were using all six measures, and more than half committed to using at least three, Berwick said.

Various estimates placed the number of saved lives at between 115,000 and 149,000, but Berwick said the best guess was 122,342. After announcing the results of the campaign, Berwick proposed another goal-all hospitals should implement all six changes by the beginning of 2007.

Sources: Associated Press and Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI).

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