Patient Safety
A Medicare policy set to begin next year that will withhold reimbursements to hospitals if preventable errors are discovered could eventually lead to improved patient safety and quality of care, researchers reported in a study for the Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety.
The authors argued that the new policy is justified if several criteria are met for each preventable error:
- The evidence demonstrates that the bulk of the adverse events can be prevented;
- The errors can be measured accurately;
- The problem resulted in clinically significant harm to the patient; and
- It is possible to determine whether the incident occurred in the hospital or was "present on admission."
The study concluded that Medicare must be clear about its rationale for the policy to win support for the policy from health care providers and hospital administrators (Wachter et al., Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety, February 2008). This is part of the California Healthline Daily Edition, a summary of health policy coverage from major news organizations. Sign up for an email subscription.