Journal article
Healthy life-years lost and excess bed-days due to 6 patient safety incidents: Empirical evidence from English hospitals.
- Abstract:
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Background
There is little satisfactory evidence on the harm of safety incidents to patients, in terms of lost potential health and lifeyears.
Objective
To estimate the healthy life-years (HLYs) lost due to 6 incidents in English hospitals between the years 2005/2006 and 2009/2010, to compare burden across incidents, and estimate excess bed-days.
Research Design
The study used cross-sectional analysis of the medical records of all inpatients treated in 273 English hospitals. Patients with 6 types of preventable incidents were identified. Total attributable loss of HLYs was estimated through propensity score matching by considering the hypothetical remaining length and quality of life had the incident not occurred.
Results
The 6 incidents resulted in an annual loss of 68 HLYs and 934 excess bed-days per 100,000 population. Preventable pressure ulcers caused the loss of 26 HLYs and 555 excess bed-days annually. Deaths in low-mortality procedures resulted in 25 lost life-years and 42 bed-days. Deep-vein thrombosis/pulmonary embolisms cost 12 HLYs, and 240 bed-days. Postoperative sepsis, hip fractures, and central-line infections cost <6 HLYs and 100 beddays each.
Discussion
The burden caused by the 6 incidents is roughly comparable with the UK burden of Multiple Sclerosis (80 DALYs per 100,000), HIV/AIDS and Tuberculosis (63 DALYs), and Cervical Cancer (58 DALYs). There were marked differences in the harm caused by the incidents, despite the public attention all of them receive. Decision makers can use the results to prioritize resources into further research and effective interventions.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
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- Files:
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(Preview, Version of record, pdf, 198.5KB, Terms of use)
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- Publisher copy:
- 10.1097/MLR.0000000000000631
Authors
- Publisher:
- Lippincott, Williams & Wilkins
- Journal:
- Medical Care More from this journal
- Volume:
- 55
- Issue:
- 2
- Pages:
- 125-130
- Publication date:
- 2017-02-01
- Acceptance date:
- 2016-06-01
- DOI:
- EISSN:
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1537-1948
- ISSN:
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0025-7079
- Language:
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English
- Keywords:
- Pubs id:
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pubs:653716
- UUID:
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uuid:69fd9b51-3fa8-4da2-9f7f-5914d76a9546
- Local pid:
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pubs:653716
- Source identifiers:
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653716
- Deposit date:
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2017-06-02
- ARK identifier:
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Wolters Kluwer Health
- Copyright date:
- 2017
- Notes:
- Copyright © 2016 Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. All rights reserved. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives License 4.0 (CCBY-NC-ND), where it is permissible to download and share the work provided it is properly cited. The work cannot be changed in any way or used commercially without permission from the journal.
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