Becker's Hospital Review

26 QUALITY IMPROVEMENT & MEASUREMENT Preventable hospital death estimates are too high, study finds By Gabrielle Masson E stimates of preventable hospital deaths may be two to four times too high, according to a study published Jan. 21 in e Journal of General Internal Medicine. Researchers at New Haven, Conn.- based Yale School of Medicine analyzed eight inpatient death studies complet- ed aer 2007 through April 8, 2019. e analysis revealed about 22,000 preventable deaths occur at U.S. hos- pitals annually, contrasting the 44,000 to 98,000 estimate from a landmark Institute of Medicine study in 1999. Other frequently cited studies estimate the number of deaths to be as high as 250,000 deaths a year. Most of the previous studies analyzed patients with any adverse event, such as a misdiagnosis or delay in therapy, Benjamin Rodwin, MD, corresponding author and assistant professor of inter- nal medicine at Yale, said in a school news release. e studies then looked at how many of those errors were prevent- able and ultimately fatal. is method could have created bias and error in the studies, the Yale researchers said. Instead, the Yale analysis only reviewed studies that began with hospital deaths and worked backward to determine if they were preventable. e study also found that about 7,150 of the patients who died from hospital error were previously healthy people, while the rest of preventable deaths occurred in patients with less than a three-month life expectancy. e higher estimates of hospital patient deaths publicized two decades ago may have prompted increased oversight in hospitals and itself reduced the number of errors and preventable deaths, Dr. Rodwin said. n There's little evidence bedside 'sitters' reduce patient falls Mackenzie Bean B edside "sitters" are an expensive strategy to reduce patient falls, and more research is needed to determine if they're worth the cost, accord- ing to a study published in Annals of Internal Medicine. Bedside sitters are often nurses or other staff members who constantly monitor the patient and offer immediate assistance when necessary. For the study, researchers systematically reviewed data from 20 studies as- sessing the effect of adding patient sitters to usual care or comparing it to an alternative practice, such as video monitoring, in acute hospitals. "Despite a compelling rationale, evidence is scant that adding sitters to usual care reduces falls," researchers said. The findings do not prove that sitters are ineffective, but rather that there is not enough rigorous research available on the topic, the researchers noted, according to HealthDay. n 10 common medication errors to address in 2020 By Mackenzie Bean T he Institute for Safe Medication Practices on Jan. 16 shared 10 common medication errors and hazards healthcare providers should work to address in 2020. The list features 10 persistent medical errors that providers could prevent or minimize through practice changes. Here are the 10 medical errors, as listed by ISMP: 1. Selecting the wrong drug after entering the first few letters of its name. 2. Prescribing daily, not weekly, oral methotrexate for nononcologic conditions. 3. Errors caused by look-alike drug labels. 4. Mishearing drug orders from verbal conversations. 5. Unsafe overrides of automated dispensing cabinets. 6. Unsafe practices associated with adult IV push medications. 7. Improperly administering tranexamic acid through intraspinal injection. 8. Unsafe labeling of prefilled syringes and infusions by 503b compounders. 9. Unsafe use of syringes for vinca alkaloids. 10. 1,000-fold overdoses with zinc n

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