Medical Xpress May 12, 2022
One in four older Americans covered by Medicare had some type of temporary or lasting harm during hospital stays before the COVID-19 pandemic, government investigators said in an oversight report published Thursday.
The report from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General said 12% of patients had “adverse events” that mainly led to longer hospital stays but also permanent harm, death, or required life-saving intervention. Another 13% had temporary issues that could have caused further complications had hospital staff not acted.
Investigators reviewed the medical records of 770 Medicare patients discharged from 629 hospitals in 2018 to formulate a national rate on how often patients were harmed, whether preventable or not. An earlier Inspector General...
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