Only 14% Patient Harm Events Captured

Post date: Jan 10, 2012 10:55:42 AM

HHS has published Hospital Incident Reporting Systems Do Not Capture Most Patient Harm that only 14 percent of patient harm events experienced by Medicare beneficiaries are captured.

The major highlights from a survey of 189 hospitals:

• • Hospital staff did not report 86 percent of events to incident reporting systems, partly because of staff misperceptions about what constitutes patient harm

  • Nurses most often reported events, typically identified through the regular course of care; 28 of the 40 reported events led to investigations and 5 led to policy changes

  • Hospital accreditors reported that in evaluating hospital safety practices, they focus on how event information is used rather than how it is collected.

A great systems topic to explore how these silos can be put together and submit your findings to the Clinical Informatics area of the systems-oriented Health Systems.