Surgical errors most frequent and costly medical errors, reports Safety-Centered Solutions

Adverse events in surgery are the most frequent and costly type of medical error occurring in hospitals according to statistics from the National Patient Safety Benchmarking Center, a repository of data on adverse events collected and analyzed by Safety-Centered Solutions, Inc. (SCS).

The top five most frequent adverse events-surgery, medication errors, medical (nonsurgical treatment), patient falls, and nosocomial (hospital-acquired) infections-account for 67 percent of the total events in SCS' National Patient Safety Benchmarking Center. The top five most costly adverse events-surgery, medical (nonsurgical treatment), nosocomial infections, medication errors, and pressure ulcers-make up 81.5 percent of the total costs in the database.

"Recent attention has been focused on the prevalence of medication errors and their impact on patient safety and healthcare costs," said David Spencer, CEO, SCS. "Our findings indicate that there are several types of adverse events that are at least as frequent and costly as medication errors. We will continue to work with hospitals to address all types of adverse events and create long-term solutions for reporting, tracking, and remediation."

Adverse events in surgery account for nearly 20 percent of events in the national database; medication errors make up 16 percent; medical (nonsurgical treatment) account for 14.8 percent; patient falls make up 8.8 percent; and nosocomial infections round out the top five most frequent adverse events with 7.5 percent.

According to SCS' National Patient Safety Benchmarking Center, the five most costly adverse events are: surgical errors, comprising 31 percent of the costs; medical (nonsurgical treatment), 16.6 percent; nosocomial infections, 13.8 percent; medication errors, 11.7 percent; and pressure ulcers, 8.3 percent.

For the past nine years, SCS has been collecting and analyzing data from hospitals nationwide in order to ensure that its National Patient Safety Benchmarking Center contains accurate and complete information. All data entered into the system conform to the definitions provided to each hospital through SCS' Patient Safety Desk Reference(medical errors taxonomy).

SCS' Safety-Centered Care program combines software and comprehensive education and leadership training to improve patient safety by reducing medical errors. Integral components of the Safety-Centered Care program include Excalibur Patient Safety Net, which measures and tracks both the incidence and costs of hospital-based medical errors in more than 1,500 aspects of care; Excalibur Pharmacy Safety Net, which tracks more than 600 types of medication error events; and the Patient Safety Desk Reference, a standard classification and coding taxonomy enabling the categorization and study of patterns behind these errors.

Safety-Centered Solutions (www.scCARE.com) is a Tampa, FL-based healthcare information and educational services company that assists hospitals in improving patient safety and delivering cost-effective care. The company is a strategic partner of Thomson Healthcare, a leading authority for healthcare information, including Physicians' Desk Reference and The Hospital Pharmacist. Thomson Healthcare comprises Medical Economics and Micromedex.

Source: Safety-Centered Solutions