The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality released the 2023 Chartbook on Patient Safety which underscores the need to address persistent harms caused by poor communication and inappropriate or unnecessary care. The publication, based on data from AHRQ’s 2022 National Healthcare Quality and Disparities Report, summarizes trends spanning 2000 to 2020 across key patient safety measures. Findings include:
- In 2020, 11.7 percent of non-Hispanic Black adult hospital patients who received a hypoglycemic agent experienced a related adverse event, compared with 4.3 percent of non-Hispanic White patients.
- In 2019, the rate of severe maternal morbidity events was 12.3, 8.7 and 8.2 per every 1,000 delivery hospitalizations non-Hispanic Black, non-Hispanic Asian and Hispanic women, respectively, compared with 6.6 per every 1,000 deliveries among non-Hispanic White women.
- Despite improvements among all races, the percentage of White home healthcare patients who reported that their providers explain things in a way they can understand is an estimated 10 years away from reaching the benchmark of 86.8 percent, and Asian adults are an estimated 20 years away.
Read more:
- AHRQ: 2023 Chartbook on Patient Safety, March 2023