One in 20 patients experiences preventable harm in healthcare, according to a meta-analysis published July 17 in BMJ.
Researchers analyzed data from 70 observational studies involving 337,025 patients from sources such as Medline, PubMed and Google Scholar. They found a pooled proportion of 12 percent of preventable patient harm incidents were severe or fatal. They also found preventable patient harm was more common in intensive care or surgery compared with general hospitals.
"There are limited quality improvement practices specifically targeting incidents of preventable patient harm rather than overall patient harm (preventable and non-preventable)," the study's authors wrote. They suggested developing these practices could improve care quality and cut costs.