National Healthcare Disparities Report - LDI Health Economist

Patient Safety
To Err Is Human does not mention race or ethnicity when discussing the problem of patient safety, and data
are limited. Any differences that suggest patient race or ethnicity might influence the risk of experiencing a
patient safety event must be investigated to better understand the underlying reasons for any differences
before the differences can be eliminated.
Chapter 3
Despite these limitations, a more complete picture of patient safety is emerging. In recent years, progress has
been made in raising awareness, developing reporting systems, and establishing national data collection
standards. Examining patient safety using a combination of administrative data, medical record abstraction,
spontaneous adverse event reports, and patient surveys allows a more robust understanding of what is
improving and what is not. Still, data remain incomplete for a comprehensive national assessment of patient
safety (Aspden, et al., 2004).
To increase access to high-quality, affordable health care for all Americans, one of the broad aims of the
National Quality Strategy (NQS) is providing better care. One way to advance this aim is by focusing on the
priority of making care safer by reducing harm caused during the delivery of care. This priority has great
potential for rapidly improving health outcomes and increasing the effectiveness of care for all populations.
The NQS states that health care providers should aim to reduce the rates of care-related injury to zero
whenever possible and should strive to create a system that reliably provides high-quality health care for
everyone.
The Partnership for Patients was created to improve the quality, safety, and affordability of health care for all
Americans. One of the goals of this partnership is to:
n Keep patients from getting injured or sicker.
o By the end of 2013, preventable hospital-acquired conditions would decrease by 40% compared
with 2010. Achieving this goal would mean approximately 1.8 million fewer injuries to patients
with more than 60,000 lives saved over 3 years.
Achieving the goals of the partnership will save lives and prevent injuries to millions of Americans. In
addition, up to $35 billion dollars could be saved across the health care system, including up to $10 billion in
Medicare savings over the next 3 years. Over the next 10 years, it could reduce cost to Medicare by about
$50 billion and result in billions more in Medicaid savings. This will help put our Nation on the path toward
a more sustainable health care system.
The National Healthcare Disparities Report (NHDR) has tracked a growing number of patient safety
measures. Organized around the Partnership for Patients’ priority of safety, the 2011 NHDR presents the
following measures that relate to the goal to keep patients from getting injured or sicker:
n Healthcare-associated infections (HAIs):
o Appropriate care among surgical patients.
o Appropriate timing of antibiotics among surgical patients.
o Postoperative sepsis.
n Adverse events:
o Ambulatory care visits due to adverse effects of medical care.
o Mechanical adverse events associated with central venous catheters.
o Postoperative respiratory failure.
142 National Healthcare Disparities Report, 2011