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Inpatient Safety and Adverse Outcomes
November 2015
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality?s Patient Safety Indicators (PSI) are a set of metrics that provide information on the potential for inpatient hospital complications and adverse events following surgeries, procedures, and childbirth. PSIs can be used to help hospitals identify potential adverse events that might need further evaluation, provide the opportunity to assess the incidence of adverse events and complications, and understand patient safety events on a broader level. In the United States in 2013, adverse outcomes were attributable to:
2,176,763 additional days of stay
$8,011,500,131 in additional total hospital costs of care
Medicare spend per beneficiary (MSPB) information is a Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services metric that reflects the average cost of an episode of care for Medicare patients. This measure is important to consider as part of a hospital's national balanced scorecard, as it reflects executives' efforts to transform the healthcare delivery system and manage the full continuum of care, including the prominent shift from inpatient to outpatient utilization.
Spending on supplies and pharmaceutical services varies among U.S. hospitals. It is not uncommon for hospitals with similar types of patients, including case mix and severity, to have significant differences in purchasing intensity for certain clinical services. Even small changes in efficiency can make a difference for hospitals and health systems, because supply-chain spending typically accounts for hospitals’ biggest spend after labor costs. Costs totaled about $74 billion in 2012, according to the Healthcare Supply Chain Association.
The Truven Health 15 Top Health Systems study annually identifies those health system leadership teams that have most effectively aligned outstanding performance across their organizations, and achieved more reliable outcomes in every member hospital. Truven Health Analytics measures U.S. health systems based on a balanced scorecard across a range of performance factors: care quality, patient safety, use of evidence-based medicine, operational efficiency, and customer perception of care.
