Hospital Hangups: Medical Mistake Rates for La Grange Memorial

It’s nightmarish to envision a medical sponge or bit of gauze left inside your body after surgery.

But that’s not something you need to be too worried about if you’re being treated at Adventist La Grange Memorial Hospital. 

Zero objects were accidentally left inside Medicare patients at the hospital between July 2009 and June 2011, according to the federal program’s record of hospital-acquired conditions.

The national rate for such mistakes is 0.028 per 1,000 patients discharged. Discharged patients include those who go home, leave for another treatment facility or die while at the hospital.

Falls and injuries, at a rate of 0.832 per 1,000 discharges, are slightly more common for Medicare patients at La Grange Memorial than the national average, which is 0.527 per 1,000. 

The hospital-acquired conditions chart is designed to help patients gauge whether health-care facilities are following proper procedures. Higher rates for a given condition mean that a hospital might not be doing all it could to prevent its occurrence. All of the conditions tracked are relatively rare, according to Medicare.

This particular chart is part of the larger Hospital Compare database that allows patients to analyze statistics for complications, emergency room wait times and other criteria from multiple hospitals.

Statistics for the hospital-acquired conditions portion of the Hospital Compare database were drawn from Medicare enrollment and claims forms. Other sections use hospital-reported data and patient surveys. 

Search other areas of the database.

The website cautions that because the hospital-acquired conditions data does not account for the types of patients treated, it should not be used to directly compare individual hospitals.

Hospital-Acquired Condition Rates

Objects accidentally left in the body after surgery

Air bubble in the bloodstream

Mismatched blood types

Severe pressure sores (bed sores)

Falls and injuries

Blood infection from a catheter in a large vein

Infection from a urinary catheter

Signs of uncontrolled blood sugar

Source: Medicare

-----

Sign up for our daily newsletter: La Grange / Western Springs

Follow us on Facebook: La Grange / Western Springs