Hospital errors are so common that more than one quarter of Medicare patients suffer harm as a result of care provided in hospitals, and 15,000 die each month due to mistakes by hospital workers, according to a new study from the inspector general of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Physician reviewers studied a representative sample of 780 Medicare beneficiaries selected from patients discharged during October 2008, and found 13.5 percent experienced adverse events. These included incidents resulting in prolonged hospital stay, permanent harm, life-saving intervention or death. An additional 13.5 percent suffered temporary harm, such as infections resulting from use of a catheter. An estimated 1.5 percent of Medicare patients experienced an event that contributed to their deaths.
The report concluded that 44 percent of the errors were preventable, and resulted from medical mistakes, substandard care, or lack of patient monitoring and assessment.
Hospital errors causing harm to patients cost Medicare an estimated $324 million in October, 2008, which projects to $4.4 billion annually, the report says.
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