Hospitals are safer than they were before the pandemic: study
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Improved safety practices led 200,000 more patients to survive hospitalization in 2023 and 2024 than they would have four years earlier, per a new analysis on patient safety from the American Hospital Association and Vizient.
Why it matters: The analysis indicates not only a rebound but an improvement in hospital safety after the pandemic, when federal data previously showed a decline.
- The 2023 and 2024 data "provide a timelier snapshot on hospitals' performance" compared to other reports that relied on older data, the AHA said in a release.
What they found: Vizient identified 715 general, acute care hospitals for which it had 18 quarters of data from beginning in the fourth quarter of 2019 through the first quarter of 2024. The data was from hospitals that routinely report clinical information to Vizient's Clinical Data Base.
- Hospitals saw higher volumes and patients with more complex needs in the later quarters.
- However, patients in the first quarter of 2024 were still, on average, 20% more likely to survive given the severity of their illness compared to the fourth quarter of 2019.
Zoom in: Central line-associated bloodstream infections (CLABSI) and catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTI) are often used as a measure of patient safety because the two healthcare-associated infections are largely considered preventable.
- Both were lower in the first quarter of 2024 compared to the fourth quarter of 2019, per the report.
Yes, but: Patient volumes continue to rise and there are shortages of some health care professionals, both of which have been found to threaten the quality of care.
