$28 billion saved by patient safety efforts

Hospital-acquired infections and the deaths caused by them plunged between 2010 and 2015, according to a new report released by HHS.

The agency’s scorecard on rates of hospital-acquired infections said those adverse events have declined by 21 percent, preventing approximately 125,000 patient deaths and saving more than $28 billion in health care costs.

The press release credited the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and related quality and safety programs for “this progress toward a safety healthcare system."

“These achievements demonstrate the commitment across many public and private organizations and frontline clinicians to improve the quality of care received by patients across the county,” CMS CMO Patrick Conway, MD, said in a statement.  “It is important to remember that numbers like 125,000 lives saved or more than three million infections and adverse events avoided represent real value for people across the nation who received high quality care and were protected from suffering a terrible outcome. It is a testament to what can be accomplished when people commit to working toward a common goal. We will continue our efforts to improve patient safety across the nation on behalf of the patients, families and caregivers we serve.”

The list of hospital-acquired conditions (HACs) includes adverse drug events, catheter-associated urinary tract infections, central line associated bloodstream infections, pressure ulcers and surgical site infections, among others. These conditions were selected because “they occur frequently and appear to be largely preventable based on existing evidence,” according to HHS.

The preliminary report for 2015 had 115 HACs per 1,000 discharges, down from 121 per 1,000 in 2014 and 145 per 1,000 in 2010.

According to the Agency on Healthcare Research and Quality, 43 percent of the decline can be attributed to fewer adverse drug events and about 23 percent came from reducing pressure ulcers. The greatest drop percentage-wise in a HAC category was seen in central-line bloodstream infections, which have decreased 91 percent between 2010 and 2015.

“AHRQ has been building a foundation of patient safety research for the last decade and a half at the request of Congress,” said AHRQ director Andy Bindman, MD. "Now we’re seeing these investments continue to pay off in terms of lives saved, harm avoided, and safer care delivery overall. We’re gratified by the progress, and we look forward to building on this work to help make patient care even safer as the work continues."