MedicalConspiracies- Hospital care fatal for some Medicare patients

Hospital care fatal for some Medicare patients

Medical mistakes are "an enormous public- health problem."
About one in seven Medicare hospital patients — or about 134,000 of
the estimated 1 million discharged in October 2008 — were harmed from
medical care.
By Rita Rubin, USA TODAY

An estimated 15,000 Medicare patients die each month in part because
of care they receive in the hospital, says a government study released
today.
The study is the first of its kind aimed at understanding "adverse
events" in hospitals — essentially, any medical care that causes harm
to a patient, according to the Department of Health and Human
Services' Office of Inspector General.

Patients in the study, a nationally representative sample that focused
on 780 Medicare patients discharged from hospitals in October 2008,
suffered such problems as bed sores, infections and excessive bleeding
from blood-thinning drugs, the report found. The federal Agency for
Healthcare Research and Quality called the results "alarming."

"Reducing the incidence of adverse events in hospitals is a critical
component of efforts to improve patient safety and quality care" in
the U.S., the inspector general wrote.

The findings "tell us exactly what some of us have been afraid of,
that we have not made much progress," said Arthur Levin, director of
the independent Center for Medical Consumers and a member of an
Institute of Medicine committee that wrote a landmark 1999 report on
medical errors. "What more do we have to do to make sure that sick
people can rest assured that they're not going to be harmed by the
care they're getting?"

Among the findings in the report obtained by USA TODAY:

•Of the 780 cases, 12 patients died as a result of hospital care. Five
were related to blood-thinning medication.

Two other medication-related deaths involved inadequate insulin
management resulting in hypoglycemic coma and respiratory failure
resulting from over sedation.

•About one in seven Medicare hospital patients — or about 134,000 of
the estimated 1 million discharged in October 2008 — were harmed from
medical care.

•Another one in seven experienced temporary harm because the problem
was caught in time and reversed.

About 47 million Americans are enrolled in Medicare, a government
health insurance program for people 65 and older and those of any age
with kidney failure.

The adverse events found in the study weren't necessarily due to
medical mistakes, said Lee Adler, a University of Central Florida
medical professor who was involved in the study. For example, he said,
an allergic reaction to a penicillin injection is an adverse event,
but it's a medical error only if the patient's allergy was known prior
to the shot.

Among the problems identified in the report were Medicare patients who
had excessive bleeding following surgery or a procedure. For example,
one patient had excessive bleeding after his kidney dialysis needle
was inadvertently removed, which resulted in circulatory shock and an
emergency insertion of a tube to allow breathing.

When the tube was removed the next day, the patient inhaled foreign
material into his lungs and needed lifesaving medical help, the report
said.

Peter Pronovost of Johns Hopkins University, co-author of the book
Safe Patients, Smart Hospitals, said medical mistakes are "an enormous
public- health problem."

"We spend two pennies trying to deliver safe health care for every
dollar we spent trying to develop new genes and new drugs," Pronovost
said. "We have to invest in the science of health care delivery."

http://www.usatoday.com/yourlife/health/healthcare/2010-11-16-medicare_N.htm

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