While patient safety in US hospitals is improving, "medical mistakes still occur at an alarming rate," according to the sixth annual HealthGrades study of patient safety in American hospitals, released today.Between 2005 and 2007, medical errors cost Medicare over $6.9 billion and were responsible for more than 92,000 potentially preventable in-hospital deaths among Medicare beneficiaries, report Dr. Rick May and others at HealthGrades, a healthcare ratings organization in Golden, Colorado.
May's group used a Medicare database to evaluate 12 patient safety indicators at nearly 5000 hospitals. The 242 best-performing hospitals were recognized with the HealthGrades 2009 Patient Safety Excellence Award.
Click here to learn how to protect yourself from exposure to infectious diseases in the hospital.
More than 913,000 total "patient safety events" occurred, representing 2.3 percent of the nearly 38 million Medicare hospital admissions.
Patients who suffered one of these mistakes had a one-in-ten chance of dying, the report indicates.
Individual hospital ratings can be viewed for free at www.healthgrades.com.