Medical errors edging up in US, study finds

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Hospital-acquired infections are worsening in the United States, according to a report issued on Monday. And the problem of such infections provides a good indication of which hospitals are prone to errors overall, the report, from Colorado-based Health Grades Inc, finds.

“Hospital-acquired infections rates worsened by approximately 20 percent from 2000 to 2003 and accounted for 9,552 deaths and $2.60 billion—almost 30 percent of the total excess cost related to the patient safety incidents,” the company said in its report.

Such infections include antibiotic-resistant bacteria that are very difficult to treat, including staphylococcus and streptococcus infections.

Health Grades, which evaluates the quality of hospitals, physicians and nursing homes, found more than 300,000 patients died after suffering some sort of adverse, hospital-related incident in 2001, 2002 and 2003.

The report that found more than 80 percent of these deaths could be attributed to the incident.

“Hospital-acquired infections correlated most highly with overall performance and performance on the other 12 patient safety incidents, suggesting that hospital-acquired infection rates could be used as a proxy of overall hospital patient safety,” the report reads.

But many hospitals emerged with good overall records on patient safety, the report found. They seem to have a “culture of safety,” said Health Grades Vice President of Medical Affairs Dr. Samantha Collier.

“A ‘culture of safety’ requires rapid identification of errors and root causes, and the successful implementation of improvement strategies—which can only be achieved with strong leadership, critical thinking, and commitment to excellence,” Collier added in a statement.

“For patients, it’s important to know which hospitals meet this standard, as they are nearly 200 percent less likely to have an incident at hospitals in the top 10 percent,” according to the Health Grades study.

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