This month the Office of Inspector General in the US Department of Health & Human Services has reported that more than one in four medicare beneficiaries experience some degree of harm while hospitalized.  |
| Click here to see table in the report |
The report noted that there were issues in the nation's hospital patient harm reporting system.
Findings included that half of States in the US had adverse event (AE) reporting systems in 2008, but only 12% of events met States requirements for reporting.
Of course, this means that half the States do not utilize a reporting system for AEs. This could be due in part to the fact that there are no Federal standards requiring States to have AE reporting systems.
Interestingly the report states that "hospital administrators indicated that staff often did not report events because they identified them not as patient harm, but rather as expected side effects."
