The Safety of Inpatient Health Care.

BACKGROUND: Adverse events during hospitalization are a major cause of patient harm, as documented in the 1991 Harvard Medical Practice Study. Patient safety has changed substantially in the decades since that study was conducted, and a more current assessment of harm during hospitalization is warranted. METHODS: We conducted a retrospective cohort study to assess the frequency, preventability, and severity of patient harm in a random sample of admissions from 11 Massachusetts hospitals during the 2018 calendar year. The occurrence of adverse events was assessed with the use of a trigger method (identification of information in a medical record that was previously shown to be associated with adverse events) and from review of medical records. Trained nurses reviewed records and identified admissions with possible adverse events that were then adjudicated by physicians, who confirmed the presence and characteristics of the adverse events. RESULTS: In a random sample of 2809 admissions, we identified at least one adverse event in 23.6%. Among 978 adverse events, 222 (22.7%) were judged to be preventable and 316 (32.3%) had a severity level of serious (i.e., caused harm that resulted in substantial intervention or prolonged recovery) or higher. A preventable adverse event occurred in 191 (6.8%) of all admissions, and a preventable adverse event with a severity level of serious or higher occurred in 29 (1.0%). There were seven deaths, one of which was deemed to be preventable. Adverse drug events were the most common adverse events (accounting for 39.0% of all events), followed by surgical or other procedural events (30.4%), patient-care events (which were defined as events associated with nursing care, including falls and pressure ulcers) (15.0%), and health care-associated infections (11.9%). CONCLUSIONS: Adverse events were identified in nearly one in four admissions, and approximately one fourth of the events were preventable. These findings underscore the importance of patient safety and the need for continuing improvement. (Funded by the Controlled Risk Insurance Company and the Risk Management Foundation of the Harvard Medical Institutions.).

Healthcare system effects of pay-for-performance for smoking status documentation.

OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the impact on smoking status documentation of a payer-sponsored pay-for-performance (P4P) incentive that targeted a minority of an integrated healthcare delivery system's patients. STUDY DESIGN: Three commercial insurers simultaneously adopted P4P incentives to document smoking status of their members with 3 chronic diseases. The healthcare system responded by adding a smoking status reminder to all patients' electronic health records (EHRs). We measured change in smoking status documentation before (2008-2009) and after (2010-2011) P4P implementation by patient P4P eligibility. METHODS: The P4P-eligible patients were compared primarily with a subset of non-P4P-eligible patients who resembled P4P-eligible patients and also with all non-P4P-eligible patients. Multivariate models adjusted for patient and provider characteristics and accounted for provider-level clustering and preimplementation trends. RESULTS: Documentation increased from 48% of 207,471 patients before P4P to 71% of 227,574 patients after P4P. Improvement from 56% to 83% occurred among P4P-eligible patients (adjusted odds ratio [AOR], 3.6; 95% confidence interval [CI], 2.9-4.5) and from 56% to 80% among the comparable subset of non-P4P-eligible patients (AOR, 3.0; 95% CI, 2.3-3.9). The difference in improvement between groups was significant (AOR, 1.3; 95% CI, 1.1-1.4; P = .009). CONCLUSIONS: A P4P incentive targeting a minority of a healthcare system's patients stimulated adoption of a system wide EHR reminder and improved smoking status documentation overall. Combining a P4P incentive with an EHR reminder might help healthcare systems improve treatment delivery for smokers and meet "meaningful use" standards for EHRs.

Effects of documentation-based decision support on chronic disease management.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate whether a new documentation-based clinical decision support system (CDSS) is effective in addressing deficiencies in the care of patients with coronary artery disease (CAD) and diabetes mellitus (DM). STUDY DESIGN: Controlled trial randomized by physician. METHODS: We assigned primary care physicians (PCPs) in 10 ambulatory practices to usual care or the CAD/DM Smart Form for 9 months. The primary outcome was the proportion of deficiencies in care that were addressed within 30 days after a patient visit. RESULTS: The Smart Form was used for 5.6% of eligible patients. In the intention-to-treat analysis, patients of intervention PCPs had a greater proportion of deficiencies addressed within 30 days of a visit compared with controls (11.4% vs 10.1%, adjusted and clustered odds ratio =1.14; 95% confidence interval, 1.02-1.28; P = .02). Differences were more pronounced in the "on-treatment" analysis: 17.0% of deficiencies were addressed after visits in which the Smart Form was used compared with 10.6% of deficiencies after visits in which it was not used (P <.001). Measures that improved included documentation of smoking status and prescription of antiplatelet agents when appropriate. CONCLUSIONS: Overall use of the CAD/DM Smart Form was low, and improvements in management were modest. When used, documentation-based decision support shows promise, and future studies should focus on refining such tools, integrating them into current electronic health record platforms, and promoting their use, perhaps through organizational changes to primary care practices.

Present-at-admission diagnoses improve mortality risk adjustment and allow more accurate assessment of the relationship between volume of lung cancer operations and mortality risk.

BACKGROUND: Mortality risk adjustment is a key component of studies that examine the statistical relationship between hospital lung cancer operation volume and in-hospital mortality. Previous studies of this relationship have used different methods of adjusting for factors that influence mortality risk, but none have adjusted for differences in comorbid disease using only diagnoses identified as present-at-admission. METHODS: This study uses adjustments for conditions identified as present-at-admission to examine the statistical relationship between the volume of lung cancer operations and mortality among 14,456 California hospital patients, and compares these results to other methods of risk adjustment similar to those used in previous studies. RESULTS: Mortality risk adjustment using present-at-admission diagnoses yielded better discrimination and explained more of the variability in observed deaths. Large increases in hospital procedure volume were associated with much smaller decreases in mortality risk than those estimated using comparable risk-adjustment models. CONCLUSIONS: Present-at-admission diagnoses can be used to improve mortality risk adjustment and may allow a more accurate assessment of the relationship between procedure volume and mortality risk.