Study: Hospitals improved in patient safety areas for five consecutive years
Patient Safety Monitor Alert
March 19, 2008
A recent study called Trends in Patient Safety Adverse Outcomes and 100 Top Hospitals Performance 2000-2005, done by Thomson Healthcare using eight patient safety measures, shows that overall patient safety in hospitals improved during the five years between 2001 and 2005. The top 100 hospitals achieved the biggest improvement in this area. Thomson estimates that if all hospitals throughout the country performed as they did in the eight areas, $253 million would have been saved, as well as 7,914 lives.The eight measures were: Risk-adjusted mortality, risk-adjusted complications, patient safety composite, average core measures scores, severity-adjusted average length of stay, expense per adjusted discharge, profit from operations, and cash-to-debt ratio.
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