Medicare patients often experience harm in long-term care hospitals

Medicare patients in long-term care hospitals often experience serious problems that put their health in danger, according to a new report from the HHS Office of Inspector General. The analysis looked looked at records for Medicare beneficiaries who were admitted to long-term care hospitals in March 2014. Patient harm was common — 21 percent had experienced particularly severe adverse events, and another 25 percent experienced temporary problems that still required medical care. More than half of all cases of patient harm were likely preventable and were due to medical errors or substandard care.