More than one-quarter of post-acute care residents suffered from “adverse events,” Health and Human Services’ inspector general will announce Friday, a source with intimate knowledge of the report tells me.
The IG found 280 incidents in its report, everything from inadequate staffing to sloppy paperwork, the source says. Post-acute care’s “adverse” rate was close to hospital mistake rates in a 2010 audit, the source says. The source can’t be identified because of the sensitivity of the issue.
One should be careful with language here: “adverse event” isn’t the same as “abuse.” (In fact, the source tells me, Friday’s report says that auditors looked carefully for evidence of abuse in their sample, but couldn’t document a single case.)
Still, this is the kind of thing that gets providers calling their therapists. Because “adverse events” can mean anything from a paper cut to, um, death.
Stay tuned. (Bill Myers is Provider’s senior editor. E-mail him at wmyers@providermagazine.com, or follow him on Twitter, @ProviderMyers.)