However, 96.6 percent of all reports were incidents, in which the patient was not harmed; approximately 3.4 percent of all reports were serious events, indicating the patient has received some level of harm, ranging from minor, temporary harm to death. Incident reports were up 8 percent and serious events up 5 percent over 2006.
Data are not broken down by facility type, however the annual report notes that reports from hospitals accounted for 98.7 percent of all submissions. As a result, it tends to provide a glimpse at the overall hospital safety picture. Some key data to come out of the report:
- Women patients were more involved in reports (54.4 percent) than men (45.6 percent). The Patient Safety Authority accounts for this by noting that women use the health system more because they are more likely to use the healthcare system during childbearing years and have longer life expectancy than men.
- Adverse drug reactions occurred 63 percent of the time in women.
- Children and adolescent (aged 21 and younger) reports increased by 3.3 percent in 2007.
- Patient falls accounted for 17 percent of all reports, a decrease from 21 percent in 2006.
- While complications related to procedures, treatments or tests accounted for just 15 percent of overall reports, they accounted for 44 percent of reports in which a patient was harmed and 59 percent of all reports of events resulting in or contributing to a patient?s death.
- Elderly reports remained consistent: 52.7 percent of reports involve patients 65 and older, down slightly from 2006 (53.1 percent). Elderly patients accounted for 61.2 percent of falls in 2007 (down from 62.4 percent) and 73.5 percent of reports related to skin integrity (up from 73.1 percent).
- Medication errors accounted for 22 percent of all reports (slight decrease from 2006), and just 1 percent of all serious events. Although most involved adults, medication errors involving children and adolescents were more likely to result in patient harm.
- The Patient Safety Authority received 6,266 reports related to infection control for 2007, a 16.5 percent increase. Surgical site infections, the most frequently reported, accounted for 21.6 percent of reports. Of these 1,351 reports of SSIs, surgical services accounted for 497 (36.8 percent) and medical/surgical units accounted for 369 (27.3 percent).
For the complete 2007 Annual Report, visit the Pennsylvania Patient Safety Authority online or download the PDF directly.
