On February 25, 2016 the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) publicly released a report that found hospitals face challenges implementing evidence-based practices. Six selected hospitals in GAO’s study identified three key challenges that affected their efforts to implement evidence-based patient safety practices:
Hospital officials reported taking various actions to address these challenges, and some reported that their actions led to reductions in adverse events.
GAO was asked to review information on the implementation of patient safety practices in hospitals. GAO interviewed patient safety experts and officials from six selected hospitals, six selected insurers, and officials from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ).
Patient safety experts GAO interviewed and related literature identified gaps where better information could help hospitals, including information on the effects of contextual factors on the implementation of patient safety practices in different hospitals, detail on the experiences of and strategies used by hospitals that have implemented patient safety practices, and improved techniques for measuring the frequency of certain adverse events.
The full report can be found here.
The report highlights can be found here.
