Burns, J. (2011). The Business Case for Process Improvement: 3 Success Stories. Managed Care Magazine. Retrieved from http://www.managedcaremag.com/archives/1103/1103.businesscase.html.

“A federal report last fall showed that some 180,000 patients die every year from adverse events in hospitals. Alarmingly, the report, Adverse Events in Hospitals: National Incidence Among Medicare Beneficiaries, by the federal Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General, also showed that 44 percent of events that harm patients were clearly or probably preventable. Adverse events cost Medicare an estimated $324 million in October 2008, and the most common adverse events were related to medication, patient care, surgery, and infections, the report showed.

Researchers at the Center for Evidence-Based Practice at the University of Pennsylvania reported in February that as many as 70 percent of health-care-acquired infections that occur during a hospitalization, and are not present prior to hospital admission, may be preventable if providers implement evidence-based strategies.

Such strategies could save 23,500 to 44,000 lives annually, according to the study by Craig A. Umscheid, MD, assistant professor of medicine and epidemiology and director of the university’s Center for Evidence-Based Practice. In addition, using these strategies could save $3.4 billion to $23.5 billion annually, the researchers reported in the February issue of the journal Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology.”