MDH says patient safety improving in Minnesota hospitals despite adverse health events

ST. PAUL, Minn. (FOX 9) - The Minnesota Department of Health said Tuesday safety is improving in Minnesota hospitals, despite a slight increase in adverse events last year.

What are adverse health events?

The backstory:

Adverse health events include things like pressure ulcers, falls, retained objects, wrong surgery site and medication errors.

Before and during the pandemic, adverse health events averaged about 350 per year. But in 2021, that number jumped to over 500, then 572 in 2022, 610 in 2023 and the newly-released numbers show 624 in 2024.   

While the numbers are slowing, there was an increase in surgical errors, but more surgeries were performed in 2024.  

There was a 44% decrease in medication errors.

COVID pandemic delays procedures

What they're saying:

Post pandemic, the jump in data was blamed on the high number of patients delaying procedures due to covid. But now that’s not the case, instead longer hospital stays are the issue. 

Rachel Jokela tracks adverse health events for the Minnesota Department of Health and says, "We have a very robust elderly population in the U.S. and so that increase in aging population means sometimes they stay in the hospital for a longer period of time and patients are sicker they have a lot of comorbidities with diabetes and heart disease and stroke and all these different things they might have going on and it might just not be as easy to get these people home."

Adverse events are preventable

MDH says all of the adverse events are preventable, but adds the numbers are out of about six million patient days in Minnesota hospital and surgery centers. 

What's next:

MDH works to address both hospital-specific and systemic issues that impact safety.

The Source: The Minnesota Department of Health.