HHS: 17% decline in hospital-acquired conditions

Editor's Note

The Department of Health and Human Services on December 1 reported that the rate of hospital-acquired conditions (HACs) dropped 17% from 2010 to 2014.

The decline in HACs resulted in approximately 87,000 fewer in-hospital deaths and a savings in health care costs of approximately $19.8 billion.

Among the biggest reductions:

• adverse drug events, 39.8%
• pressure ulcers, 28%
• catheter-associated urinary tract infections, 16.1%.

Surgical site infections were down 2.9%, and postoperative thromboembolisms were down 0.8%.

This document provides preliminary estimates for 2014 on hospital-acquired conditions (HACs), indicating a 17 percent decline, from 145 to 121 HACs per 1,000 discharges, from 2010 to 2014. A cumulative total of 2.1 million fewer HACs were experienced by hospital patients in 2011, 2012, 2013, and 2014 relative to the number of HACs that would have occurred if rates had remained steady at the 2010 level.