Next fall, patients will be able to report adverse events in a limited time. They’ll be able to initiate an investigation with the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality if they feel they were given the wrong medication or suffered a negative patient outcome. The report will then go to the RAND Corporation and the ECRI Institute, which investigates medical errors.
While originally supportive of the idea, the American Hospital Association touted the empowerment of patients when the idea was originally proposed last year. Original story is here.
Now that the program is about to begin comes the warning that patients don’t have the background to assess what’s an adverse event and may merely complain when they’re not satisfied. Another objection is the time it would add to facilities and physicians to answer questions by investigators about these reports. The agency says it would only add 28 hours in administrative time. Response is here and here.
In Minnesota, there is no such avenue for consumer complaints, but healthcare professionals can report an adverse event after it’s happened to the Office of Health Facilities. This office however, while tasked with protecting vulnerable patients, is limited in its power. It can’t, for example, investigate incidents where a lack of nurse staffing resulted in a “near-miss” or a fear of an adverse event.
As hospitals continue to cite industry studies that cite excellence in healthcare, there are few places to create a more realistic view of the quality of care patients receive. Consumers need to join nurses at the Minnesota legislature and on-line forums to detail cases where they or their loved ones received poor quality care.
Patients’ voices should be heard. Patients should join the chorus of nurses who cry for minimum standards of care to ensure that nurses have the time to provide safe care to patients. Nurses have been clamoring for safe staffing levels for decades, but they’ve nearly always been rebuffed by administrators who cry out for lower costs instead.