On February 25, 2016, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a report detailing the findings of a review of information on the implementation of patient safety practices in hospitals, focusing on hand hygiene and use of skin antiseptics that can reduce adverse events such as infections contracted by patients.
The report, available here, is based on information gathered from six hospitals, six insurers, and officials from CMS and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). The report identifies three major obstacles to hospitals’ implementation of patient safety practices:
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Obtaining useful information related to adverse events is difficult due to the time and expense required to gather the data.
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Hospitals have trouble determining which safety practices to implement because limited evidence is available regarding the effectiveness of the practices.
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It is difficult to ensure that staff consistently follow safety practices over time because constant monitoring is required.
Despite these challenges, hospital officials reported that effective implementation of patient safety practices has led to reductions in adverse events. One hospital noted that the hiring of an infection control nurse was followed by a 40 percent reduction in certain infections.
The report also describes the efforts of payers to reduce adverse events. GAO found that payers offer a variety of pay-for-performance incentives, but lack information on their effectiveness. Some payers noted that technical assistance and other non-financial support has resulted in a reduction of adverse events.
The report also identified gaps where better information could assist hospitals. These gaps include:
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Information on the effects of contextual factors on adverse events;
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Details regarding the experiences of other hospitals; and
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Improved techniques for measuring the frequency of adverse events.
The full report, GAO-16-308, is available here. A summary of highlights is available here.
Reporter, J. Gardner Armsby, Atlanta, +1 404 572 2760, garmsby@kslaw.com.
