And 3-fold increased risk of intensive care need, US study indicates Improvements needed in data integrity and health information management, say researchers Patients with duplicate medical records are 5 times more likely to die after being admitted to hospital and 3 times more likely to require intensive care than those ...

Redressing balance saves around £5000 for each year of healthy life gained But not if temporary agency staff are used Employing too few permanent nurses on hospital wards is linked to longer inpatient stays, readmissions, patient deaths, and ultimately costs more in lives and money, finds a long term study ...

In almost two-thirds of cases, treatment or care received was responsible, and in more than a third harm was due to lack of access to care Almost one in ten people in Great Britain experienced healthcare-related harm due to care or treatment they received from the National Health Service (NHS) ...

Most preventable, underscoring need for new approaches to surveillance, say researchers Harmful diagnostic errors may be occurring in as many as 1 in every 14 (7%) hospital patients—at least those receiving general medical care—suggest the findings of a single centre study in the US, published online in the journal BMJ Quality ...

Outpacing 45% increase in world’s population during the same period (1990-2019) Older people worldwide bear the brunt, with steepest rise among 65-69 year olds  The proportion of patient harms associated with medical procedures, treatment, and contact with healthcare systems rose by 59%, from 11 million to 18 million globally between ...

Outpacing 45% increase in world’s population during the same period (1990-2019) Older people worldwide bear the brunt, with steepest rise among 65-69 year olds  The proportion of patient harms associated with medical procedures, treatment, and contact with healthcare systems rose by 59%, from 11 million to 18 million globally between ...

Avoiding 16,000 patient harms and saving 20+ lives and £millions for services in England Implementing a single shared digital prescribing record across the NHS in England could avoid nearly 1 million drug errors every year, stopping up to 16,000 fewer patients from being harmed, and saving up to 22 lives ...

Activity focused on meeting minimum requirement, after which it tails off There’s strong evidence of a ‘threshold effect’ in English hospitals’ efforts to comply with the 18-week referral to treatment standard, concludes a long term data analysis of performance against the target, published online in the journal BMJ Quality & Safety. ...

Avoidable consequences cost NHS upwards of £98 million and 1700+ lives every year More than 237 million medication errors are made every year in England, the avoidable consequences of which cost the NHS upwards of £98 million and more than 1700 lives every year, indicate national estimates, published online in ...