Improving hospital care

Wednesday, April 13, 2011 | 2:01 a.m.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on Tuesday announced a major initiative to improve the quality of health care in the United States, targeting preventable illnesses and injuries that patients suffer while in the hospital.

As the Las Vegas Sun’s “Do No Harm” series has reported, these kinds of cases, often known as adverse events or hospital-acquired conditions, are a serious problem. The Sun’s series revealed a significant number of these incidents in Nevada that had gone largely unnoticed.

And it’s not just a problem in Nevada. In a study published this month, the journal Health Affairs reported that on average 1 in 3 patients admitted to an American hospital suffers a medical error or adverse event. That is 10 times greater than what was previously thought.

The medical community largely has been reluctant to talk about the issue publicly but, given patients’ pain and suffering and the huge costs, it has to be dealt with. Medicare estimates that 1 in 7 of its beneficiaries is harmed in the course of treatment, costing $4.4 billion a year. And that’s just Medicare. It doesn’t include Medicaid or private insurance.

Sebelius said the government will spend up to $1 billion in money from the new health care law on the effort, and it could reap huge benefits. Health officials said the program could save up to $35 billion in health care costs, including up to $10 billion in Medicare expenses, over the next three years. Over the next decade, it could save $50 billion in Medicare costs alone.

The government wants to reduce preventable illnesses and injuries suffered in hospitals by

40 percent in the next three years. A reduction of that size would mean about 1.8 million fewer cases of patient harm, including 60,000 cases that resulted in death.

The government also wants to reduce the number of preventable complications that patients suffer after they leave the hospital. Officials estimate that within 30 days of being discharged from a hospital, 1 in 5 Medicare patients is readmitted, costing more than $26 billion a year.

To curb that, federal officials will work with hospitals and community groups to help patients after they are discharged. The goal is to cut readmissions because of preventable conditions by

20 percent in the three years. That would save 1.6 million seniors from another trip to the hospital.

The program includes other ways to reduce preventable illnesses and injuries. The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will test different ways hospitals can improve patient care, and in the next several years, Medicare will start linking a portion of the payments hospitals receive to the quality of care.

Overall, this is an admirable plan that has the potential to make a significant difference in the quality of health care and reduce costs to government and private health insurance plans. We hope the medical community sees the benefits and gets behind it.