Adverse Events Decreasing in Some Hospitalized Patients

• Published in: The American journal of nursing Vol. 114; no. 6; p. 54
• Main Author: Singh Joy, Subhashni D
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. All rights reserved 01-06-2014; Lippincott Williams & Wilkins Ovid Technologies
• Subjects: Heart attacks; Heart failure; Hospitalization; Hospitals; Initiatives; Pneumonia; Washington DC; Puerto Rico
• ISSN: 0002-936X; 1538-7488
• DOI: 10.1097/01.NAJ.0000450434.50749.06

Since 2001, several national initiatives have been developed in efforts to improve patient outcomes and safety; a number of these have focused specifically on patients hospitalized for acute myocardial infarction (MI), congestive heart failure, pneumonia, or surgery. Given that the results of these efforts have not been clearly quantified, the authors of a recent study examined data from the Medicare Patient Safety Monitoring System to evaluate adverse event rates from 2005 to 2011 among patients hospitalized for these reasons in 4,372 hospitals across the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. The authors suggest that the reduction in adverse events in patients with acute ML and congestive heart failure but not in these with pneumonia or undergoing surgery may be a result of successful initiatives focused specifically on those groups of cardiac patients.