December 3, 2015
The rate of avoidable complications affecting patients in hospitals leveled off in 2014, after three years of declines, according to a federal report released Tuesday.
Hospitals have averted many types of injuries where clear preventive steps have been identified, but they still struggle to avert complications with broader causes and less clear-cut solutions, government and hospital officials said.
The CDC has reported that urinary tract infections caused by catheters became slightly more prevalent through 2013, while the AHRQ method has found a substantial drop, said IHPI member Jennifer Meddings, an assistant professor at UMHS who studies hospital infections. "This is what's very confusing to hospitals, different data gets picked in different reports."