Patient Harm Events and Associated Cost Outcomes Reported to a Patient Safety Organization

Area of Science:

• Healthcare Quality Improvement
• Patient Safety
• Health Informatics

Background:

• Inpatient harm events pose a significant challenge to healthcare systems.
• Effective detection of patient harm is crucial for improving safety and reducing costs.
• Electronic trigger systems offer a potential method for automated harm detection.

Purpose of the Study:

• To describe inpatient harm events detected by an automatic electronic trigger system (ETS).
• To analyze the financial consequences of inpatient harm events.
• To compare the efficacy of ETS with voluntary event reporting systems.

Main Methods:

• A 27-month study in 37 acute care facilities identified inpatient harm events.
• Patients experiencing harm were compared to non-harmed patients using clinical, financial, and demographic data.
• Labor-adjusted direct variable costs (DVC) and length of stay (LOS) were calculated for different cohorts.

Main Results:

• The ETS identified nearly 6-fold more harm events than the voluntary reporting system.
• Harm events were associated with increased length of stay (LOS).
• Preventable harm events resulted in significantly longer LOS (10.7 vs. 5.9 days) and higher DVC ($13,442 vs. $8024) compared to non-harmed patients.

Conclusions:

• An automatic ETS is more effective in identifying inpatient harm events than voluntary reporting.
• Preventable harm significantly increases patient length of stay and associated direct variable costs.
• These findings highlight the financial impact of patient harm and the value of automated detection systems.