HHS Data Shows Patient Safety and Quality Efforts Are Reducing HACs, Readmissions

The national rate of hospital-acquired conditions (HACs) decreased 9% between 2010 and 2012, preventing 560,000 patient harms in hospitals and saving $4.1 billion in costs, according to a May 7, 2014, report from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Due largely to the efforts of HHS's Partnership for Patients and a wide range of aligned federal programs and initiatives, national leading indicators data sets from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Healthcare Safety Network, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and others are showing dramatic improvements from 2010 to 2012, including reductions in the incidence of ventilator-associated pneumonia (53.2% decrease), early elective delivery (64.5% decrease), obstetric trauma (15.8% decrease), venous thromboembolic complications (12.9% decrease), falls (14.7% decrease), and pressure ulcers (25.2% decrease).