Hospitals’ quality and safety efforts are paying off. The rate of hospital-acquired conditions (HACs) declined 21 percent from 2010 to 2015, according to a national scorecard from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). Specifically, hospitals reported 3.1 million fewer HACs during this five-year period.
The scorecard suggests that 42 percent of this reduction is from adverse drug events, 23 percent from pressure ulcers, and 15 percent from catheter-associated urinary tract infections.
AHRQ estimates that reducing HACs during this five-year period saved nearly 125,000 patient lives as well as approximately $28 billion in healthcare costs.
