Month: November 2010

A friend of mine pointed out some shocking data from a report released today from the Office of Inspector General. More than a quarter of Medicare hospitalizations result in adverse events, half of them “serious” (meaning prolonged hospital stay, permanent harm, need for life sustaining intervention, death).  Strikingly, almost half these situations arise are preventable.  In other words they are the result of medical errors, sub-standard care, lack of patient monitoring and assessment and hospital acquired infections!  According to the study, these cost the taxpayer over $4 billion in 2008