Measuring patient safety – a slideshow

Renewed focus on patient safety will result from new rules by the U.S. Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).

The Patient Safety Structural Measure is a “groundbreaking” assessment to examine hospitals’ structure, culture and commitment to patient safety, according to the Leapfrog Group. The national hospital watchdog organization praised the measure published this month as part of CMS’ fiscal year 2025 Hospital Inpatient Prospective Payment System (IPPS). The new measure will track hospitals across five domains.

“We commend CMS leadership for taking this bold step which will make a profound difference in hard-wiring patient safety into hospitals throughout the country,” Leapfrog Group President and CEO Leah Binder said in a statement. “Our experience demonstrates that transparency is a powerful catalyst for change. The approval of this measure is a giant leap toward improving patient safety in our country.”

This slideshow combines the five new domains with findings from “Adverse Events in Hospitals: A Quarter of Medicare Patients Experienced Harm in October 2018,” a May 2022 report by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (HHS-OIG) that examined patient records of hospital stays from October 2018. The Leapfrog Group cited that report with its statement on the new CMS rule.