One in Four Hospitalized Medicare Patients 'Harmed' in Hospital

 From Sharyl's Substack:

• 25% of hospitalized Medicare patients suffered harm in hospital

• 43% of those cases were preventable

Teaching hospitals “missed” cases of harm at a far greater rate than other hospitals. In a telling revelation about the state of patient safety in U.S. hospitals, a new report from the Health and Human Services' Office of Inspector General (OIG) has uncovered startling proof that hospitals failed to document nearly half of all “patient harm events” suffered by Medicare patients.

The report highlights how this oversight stems from inconsistent interpretations as to what constitutes "harm," and leaves hospitals without crucial dat to prevent future incidents. It also arguably gives them plausible deniability when they don’t fix their issues.

Read on for details. (Read more.)