Excess Length of Stay, Charges, and Mortality Attributable to Medical Injuries during Hospitalization

Context: Although medical injuries are recognized as a major hazard in the health care system, little is known about their impact. Objective: To assess excess length of stay, charges, and deaths attributable to medical injuries during hospitalization. Design, Setting, and Patients: The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) Patient Safety Indicators (PSIs) were used to identify medical injuries in 7.45 million hospital discharge abstracts from 994 acute-care hospitals across 28 states in 2000 in the AHRQ Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project Nationwide Inpatient Sample database. Main Outcome Measures: Length of stay, charges, and mortality that were recorded in hospital discharge abstracts and were attributable to medical injuries according to 18 PSIs. Results: Excess length of stay attributable to medical injuries ranged from 0 days for injury to a neonate to 10.89 days for postoperative sepsis, excess charges ranged from $0 for obstetric trauma (without vaginal instrumentation) to $57727 for postoperative sepsis, and excess mortality ranged from 0% for obstetric trauma to 21.96% for postoperative sepsis (P