http://www.nationofchange.org/report-says-quarter-hospitalized-medicare-patients-got-improper-treatment-1320848328Surgeries performed on the wrong body part, instances of sexual assault and incorrect blood transfusions—these are just a sampling of the adverse events that more than a quarter of Medicare beneficiaries experienced while they were in treatment at hospitals, according to a month-long survey conducted as part of a recent Department of Health and Human Services inspector general’s report.
The Oct. 2008 survey of 81 hospitals found that 27 percent of Medicare beneficiaries experienced adverse events — medical errors or other improper treatment that result in patient harm — while in hospitals. But reduction of such adverse events has been hampered, the report says, by a complex and confused hospital oversight structure. The report, Adverse Events in Hospitals: National Incidence Among Medicare Recipients, was released last week.
Hospitals bear the primary responsibility for investigating adverse events, but who dictates how outside investigations should proceed is less clear. Hospitals that participate in the Medicare program must either be accredited by the independent, nationally recognized Joint Commission or demonstrate to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) that they are in compliance with a list of 23 Medicare conditions of participation, called CoPs.
Outside the scope of a hospital’s governing body, state agencies are responsible for investigating adverse events at hospitals. However, if the hospital is accredited by the Joint Commission, that state agency must report adverse events to CMS’s regional office and receive feedback from that office before beginning an investigation or making any recommendations. Even though 90 percent of hospitals elect to be accredited through the Joint Commission, CMS regional offices often failed to notify the commission of complaints, impeding the Commission’s oversight of its hospitals.
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