Although some hospitals have made progress in reducing pressure ulcers, injuries, catheter-associated urinary tract infections and central line-associated bloodstream infections, there is still a great deal of variation between hospitals in these rates, according to a recently released report based on findings from the 2014 Leapfrog Hospital Survey.
The data in the survey represents the reports of more than 1,300 hospitals. Here are seven findings highlighted in the survey, organized by condition.
Pressure ulcers
1. More than half (55 percent) of the participating hospitals reported zero stage III & IV pressure ulcers per 1,000 inpatient discharges, a slight improvement over 53 percent in 2013.
2. Fifteen hospitals reported more than one pressure ulcer per 1,000 inpatient discharges, down from 18 in 2013.
Hospital-acquired injuries
3. The incidence of hospital-acquired injuries was somewhat greater than the incidence of pressure ulcers: 280 (21.5 percent) of the hospitals had zero hospital-acquired injuries, an improvement over 2013 when 232 (17.7 percent) hospitals had an injury rate of zero.
4. Three hospitals reported what Leapfrog called an unacceptably high hospital-acquired injury rate of more than five injuries per 1,000 inpatient discharges.
CLABSI & CAUTI rates
5. The majority of hospitals (88 percent) have standardized infection ratios of 1.0 or below for CLABSIs, meaning they were more successful at preventing these infections than expected.
6. Meanwhile, nearly half (48 percent) of the reporting hospitals performed poorly in preventing CAUTIs, with a SIR of more than 1.0.
Overall progress
7. Out of 1,357 hospital that reported their rates to The Leapfrog Group on all four serious hospital-acquired conditions:
- Thirteen hospitals reported an exceptional rate of zero on all four conditions in 2014
- 71 hospitals accomplished zero on three of four conditions
- 317 hospitals had a rate of zero on two of four
- 461 hospitals on one of the four conditions
- 495 have not been able to reach zero for any of the four conditions
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