Nearly 1 in 4 U.S. Hospitalized Patients Experience Harmful Events, Study Finds
By Kaitlin Sullivan
In a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston found that of 2,809 patients admitted to 11 hospitals in the Boston area in 2018, about 24% (663) suffered at least one adverse event that negatively impacted their health. The data did not include patients admitted for observation only, hospice, rehabilitation, addiction treatment, or psychiatric care. The researchers identified 222 preventable adverse events, accounting for 7% of the admissions studied, and 29 patients (1% of admissions studied) suffered serious harm as a result of preventable adverse events. The study also identified one preventable death. Of the overall adverse events, close to 40% were associated with medications, slightly more than 30% were related to surgery and other procedures, and 15% involved "patient-care events," such as falls and bedsores. Moreover, 12% of adverse events were related to hospital-acquired infections, down significantly from a 1991 study in which they were the No. 2 most common adverse event.
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