Many hospital patients will tell you they didn’t really feel safe until they were discharged from care. And now Medicare is on the case. As reports of in-hospital infections, sepsis and complications from treatment grow, Medicare is holding health organizations accountable for their performance in this area.

In its latest report on the largest hospital safety offenders, Medicare counted 758 hospitals on its list of miscreants. Medicare reduces its payments to these organizations, so it’s no small matter. And despite several years of this punitive treatment of treatment centers, more hospitals were on this list this year than last, when 721 were punished.

The payment reduction doesn’t seem like much on the face of it: 1 percent for those on this list. But it adds up. Overall, those being “fined” will lose $364 million.

Among those on the list are some prestigious players: the Cleveland Clinic, the Mayo Clinic, Stanford Health Care and Cancer Treatment Centers of America. And about half on this year’s list made last year’s Nightmare Team.

Representatives of several of the penalized hospitals complained to Kaiser Health News that the penalties don’t take into account the complexities of treatment programs, which vary from hospital to hospital, nor efforts to improve. But others were more public relations savvy.

Typical was the statement from Dr. Brian Whited, vice chair of operations at Mayo. Two Mayo hospitals were on the list. He said Mayo Clinic supports the effort to clean up hospitals.

“As an organization, we’re not satisfied with these results and understand we have work to do to reduce hospital-acquired conditions,” Whited said. “We support the objectives of the Hospital-Acquired Condition Reduction Program, and all our practices have been developing improvement strategies and other changes to reduce those conditions.”

Instant Insights /

Mayo, Cleveland among clinics penalized for safety incidents

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