New AHA Report: Hospitals Improving Performance On Key Patient Safety Measures Surpassing Pre-Pandemic Levels

The American Hospital Association (AHA) released a new report finding that hospital and health system performance on key patient safety and quality measures was better in the first quarter of 2024 than it was before the COVID-19 pandemic, and that hospitals made these improvements while caring for patients with more significant health care needs.

For the report, Vizient provided a risk-adjusted analysis of data from a wide spectrum of 715 general acute care hospitals across 49 states and the District of Columbia with data from the fourth quarter of 2019 through the first quarter of 2024. The 2023 and 2024 data provide a timelier snapshot on hospitals’ performance on key measures compared to some other reports that often use older or outdated data.

Key findings from the report include:

• Despite being sicker and having more complex conditions, hospitalized patients in the first quarter of 2024 were on average over 20% more likely to survive than expected given the severity of their illnesses compared to the fourth quarter of 2019.
• Based on Vizient’s analysis, the AHA using national hospitalization data projects that while caring for sicker patients, hospitals’ efforts to improve safety led to 200,000 Americans hospitalized between April 2023 and March 2024 surviving episodes of care they wouldn’t have in 2019.
• Hospitals cared for more patients overall in the first quarter of 2024 than in the last quarter of 2019, including providing care to a sicker, more complex patient population.
• Hospitals’ central line-associated bloodstream infections (CLABSI) and catheter-associated urinary tract (CAUTI) infections in the first quarter of 2024 were at rates lower than those recorded in 2019.
• Not only did multiple key preventive health screenings rapidly rebound to pre-pandemic levels, but ongoing improvement has led to a 60%-to-80% increase in breast, colon and cervical cancer screenings compared to 2019.

“Hospitals and health systems are continuously working to advance patient safety and quality — which is always the hospital field’s top priority,” said AHA President and CEO Rick Pollack. “This report shows hospitals have made significant improvements on pre-pandemic performance in key patient safety outcomes. Hospitals’ commitment to improving patient outcomes and enhancing the patient experience continues to drive these efforts forward.”

“The data in this report underscore the resilience and unwavering commitment of hospitals and health systems — and the millions of hospital team members across the country — to delivering better care and outcomes to the patients and communities they serve,” said AHA Chief Physician Executive and Senior Vice President Chris DeRienzo, M.D. “While hospitals are proud of the progress they continue to make, they also recognize that there is still work to be done.”

“The recent findings from the American Hospital Association highlight the critical role of data in understanding hospital performance on essential patient safety and quality measures,” said Vizient Chief Medical Officer David Levine, M.D.

AHA’S PATIENT SAFETY INITIATIVE

All hospitals and health systems strive to deliver safe, high-quality care to every patient they serve. To help the hospital field continue to advance efforts to enhance patient safety and quality, the AHA in 2023 launched the Patient Safety Initiative, a collaborative, data-driven effort that helps hospitals and health systems work together to reinforce and accelerate patient safety efforts. The initiative provides hospitals with tools and data to advance patient safety, offers a platform for sharing their stories of improvement with peers, and highlights examples of applicable innovation that support, spread and sustain safety improvement. For more information, visit AHA’s Patient Safety Initiative webpage at aha.org/aha-patient-safety-initiative.