Hospitals are safer post-pandemic, AHA analysis shows

Hospitalized patients in the first quarter of 2024 were on average over 20% more likely to survive a stay compared with the fourth quarter of 2019, an American Hospital Association report found. Using data analyzed by Vizient, the report found safety improved, despite hospitals’ caring for more complex patients. The AHA projects efforts to improve safety led to 200,000 Americans hospitalized between April 2023 and March 2024 surviving episodes of care they would not have in 2019. Central line-associated bloodstream infections and catheter-associated urinary tract infections decreased, while preventive screening for certain cancers increased. An Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality analysis of hospitalized Medicare patients also points to patient safety improvements, finding a 13-to-15 percent reduction in adverse events in 2022 compared with 2021 (AHA news release, 9/12/24)