When medical staffing professionals are in the middle of the hospital hustle and bustle, it can be easy to overlook how far healthcare has come even within the last decade. But healthcare has made strides: The Department of Health and Human Services estimated that 1.3 million fewer patients were harmed in U.S. hospitals from 2010 to 2013 thanks to widespread efforts to limit adverse drug events, surgical-site infections and other preventable incidents. The steep drop marks a cumulative 17 percent reduction that has helped save 50,000 lives over the three years.
“This is an unprecedented decline in patient harm in this country,” CMS Deputy Administrator Dr. Patrick Conway told ModernHealthCare.com “This means avoiding costly mistakes and readmissions, keeping patients healthy and out of the hospital and rewarding quality instead of quantity.”
The progress was partly due to Affordable Care Act provisions as well as the launch of the HHS Partnership for Patients, a public-private collaborative, officials suggested.
The hospital-acquired conditions include adverse drug events, catheter-associated urinary tract infections and central-line-associated bloodstream infections among others. Most of the decrease in deaths in 2013 came from a decline in pressure ulcers, or bedsores, which result from patients being immobile for too long.
“Never before have we been able to bring so many hospitals, clinicians and experts together to share in a common goal – improving patient care,” Rich Umbdenstock, president and CEO of the American Hospital Association, said in a news release. “We have built an ‘infrastructure of improvement’ that will aid hospitals and the health care field for years to come and has spurred the results you see today.
Reaching new heights
The efforts underlined in the report demonstrate a truly astounding achievement, one that travel nursing and other healthcare professionals should take great pride in. The study was largely based on a review of thousands of medical records annually. As pleased as medical employees and patients and their families are, hospitals are already working to push this trend forward.
HHS Secretary Sylvia M. Burwell voiced her contentment over the situation. She said the data marked a giant leap not only in improving the quality of care that patients receive, but also in how wisely we’re spending our healthcare dollars. HHS will continue to team up with partners across the country to build on this progress, Burwell said.
Helping care for patients lies at the core of any medical job, and in a concerted effort between travel nursing and other medical staffing professionals, hospitals have become safer places.