New AHRQ Chartbook Shows 17 Percent Decline in Hospital-Acquired Conditions

New AHRQ Chartbook Shows 17 Percent Decline in Hospital-Acquired Conditions

Patient safety in hospitals nationwide continued to improve from 2010 to 2014, as the overall rate  of hospital-acquired conditions (HACs) declined by 17 percent, according to the 2015 National  Healthcare Quality and Disparities Report’sChartbook on Patient Safety. Examples of HACs include  surgical site infections, adverse drug events, pressure ulcers, and catheter-associated urinary tract  and vascular infections. The overall HAC rate declined from 145 per 1,000 hospital stays in 2010 to 121 per 1,000 stays in  2013, remaining at that lower rate in 2014. Approximately 2.1 million harmful events were avoided  from 2010 to 2014, saving an estimated 87,000 lives and $20 billion in health care costs. Among  patient safety measures with trend data  available from 2001-2002 through 2013, more than 60 percent showed improvement over time.  However, for about one-third of patient safety measures, high-income households received better  care than poor households, or whites received better care than some minority groups. The chartbook provides a summary of trends across patient safety measures and a data query tool  to access data tables. Also available is a PowerPoint version of the chartbook that can be used for  presentations. For more information on AHRQ’s patient safety resources, click here.