The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) recently released data on hospital-acquired conditions, such as adverse drug events and healthcare-associated infections. According to the data, hospital-acquired conditions were reduced by 910,000 from 2014 to 2017. The estimated rate of hospital-acquired conditions also dropped, from 99 per 1,000 acute care discharges to 86 per 1,000 discharges during that same time frame. These reductions helped to prevent 20,500 hospital deaths and saved $7.7 billion in healthcare costs during that time period.
According to the AHRQ, harms decreased in several categories; however, there are still opportunities for improvement in other harm categories. For example, measured adverse drug events dropped from 2014 to 2017 while measured pressure ulcers/pressure injuries increased from 2014 to 2014 before slightly decreased from 2015 to 2016 to 2017. A similar trend was found for physician-diagnosed catheter-associated urinary tract infections.
CMS has set a goal of reducing hospital-acquired conditions by 20 percent between 2014 and 2019. If achieved, AHRQ projects that the 20 percent reduction would result in 1.8 million fewer hospital-acquired conditions over this period, potentially resulting in 53,000 fewer deaths and saving $19.1 billion in hospital costs.
The below image shows re-baselined 2014 data, with 2015, 2016, and preliminary 2017 national hospital-acquired condition rate data, in comparison to the 2019 hospital-acquired condition rate goal of a 20% reduction.
“CMS is delivering on improving quality and safety at America’s hospitals,” said CMS Administrator Seema Verma. “Our work isn’t done and we will continue our efforts to hold providers accountable for delivering results.”
AHRQ Director Gopal Khanna, MBA, added, “The updated estimates are a testament to the successes we’ve seen in continuing to reduce hospital-acquired conditions. There’s no question that challenges still remain in addressing the problem of hospital-acquired conditions, such as pressure ulcers. But the gains highlighted today were made thanks to the persistent work of many stakeholders’ ongoing efforts to improve care for all patients.”