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Financial Expenses and “Losses” of the Polish Healthcare System Resulting from the Occurrence of Adverse Events

Background: The globally increasing healthcare expenditures related to the need to treat the consequences of adverse events, as well as the number of claims filed by patients (or their families) and remuneration paid as their result mean that the interest in the subject of adverse event cost managem...

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Autores principales: Leśniak, Tomasz, Sierocka, Aleksandra, Kostrzewa, Dariusz, Kozłowski, Remigiusz, Marczak, Michał
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9265973/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35805590
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19137932
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author Leśniak, Tomasz
Sierocka, Aleksandra
Kostrzewa, Dariusz
Kozłowski, Remigiusz
Marczak, Michał
author_facet Leśniak, Tomasz
Sierocka, Aleksandra
Kostrzewa, Dariusz
Kozłowski, Remigiusz
Marczak, Michał
author_sort Leśniak, Tomasz
collection PubMed
description Background: The globally increasing healthcare expenditures related to the need to treat the consequences of adverse events, as well as the number of claims filed by patients (or their families) and remuneration paid as their result mean that the interest in the subject of adverse event cost management is increasing. An increase in the number of cases concerning medical errors has also occurred in Poland in recent years. The newest statistics from the Ministry of Justice demonstrate that the courts are awarding increasingly higher amounts. The goal of this work was an attempt to approximate, based on our own experiences, the impact of adverse events on the expenditures of the healthcare system in Poland, including the costs of treatment of the consequences of such events, described by the authors as “secondary harm”. Methods: Based on the analysis of 100 cases for compensation for the occurrence of a medical event, an initial estimate of the costs of primary (initial) treatment, which resulted in the occurrence of the adverse event, and the costs of subsequent hospitalisations/stays, which were its consequences. The study was conducted in the period from October 2020 to November of 2021. Results: The statistical analysis of the examined cases enabled establishing that in 62% they concerned women. Only 38% were events which applied to men. The highest number of cases concerned events which occurred in the last years, that is 2018 (35%), 2019 (23%), and 2017 (17%). The most frequent events included those related to incorrect diagnosis (the lack of correct diagnosis), which resulted in appropriate activities not being undertaken and a lack of appropriate treatment, e.g., lack of diagnosis of cancer, myocardial infarction, appendicitis, or fracture (26%). The next one was incorrect surgical treatment (17%)—the consequence of which was most frequently a need for repeated surgery and an incorrect conservative treatment of injuries. The obtained results demonstrate that significantly higher funds are spent by medical entities for “restorative” actions (on average EUR 1433, which attempt to mitigate against the negative consequences of incorrect decisions or actions in the original treatment (average cost of EUR 814)). Conclusions: The consequences of adverse events include not only health-related harm for the patient, but also long-term social, familial, or professional results. The authors of the article are of an opinion that all the conducted analyses and conclusions drawn from them should serve the improvement of patient safety. They also form an initial point for establishing recommendations and advice for the improvement of safety and quality of medical services and the reduction of healthcare-related costs. The authors propose covering the parties injured by an adverse event (subjected to “secondary harm”) with a unique, innovative programme of post-accident health care, “Health Reconstruction”.
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spelling pubmed-92659732022-07-09 Financial Expenses and “Losses” of the Polish Healthcare System Resulting from the Occurrence of Adverse Events Leśniak, Tomasz Sierocka, Aleksandra Kostrzewa, Dariusz Kozłowski, Remigiusz Marczak, Michał Int J Environ Res Public Health Article Background: The globally increasing healthcare expenditures related to the need to treat the consequences of adverse events, as well as the number of claims filed by patients (or their families) and remuneration paid as their result mean that the interest in the subject of adverse event cost management is increasing. An increase in the number of cases concerning medical errors has also occurred in Poland in recent years. The newest statistics from the Ministry of Justice demonstrate that the courts are awarding increasingly higher amounts. The goal of this work was an attempt to approximate, based on our own experiences, the impact of adverse events on the expenditures of the healthcare system in Poland, including the costs of treatment of the consequences of such events, described by the authors as “secondary harm”. Methods: Based on the analysis of 100 cases for compensation for the occurrence of a medical event, an initial estimate of the costs of primary (initial) treatment, which resulted in the occurrence of the adverse event, and the costs of subsequent hospitalisations/stays, which were its consequences. The study was conducted in the period from October 2020 to November of 2021. Results: The statistical analysis of the examined cases enabled establishing that in 62% they concerned women. Only 38% were events which applied to men. The highest number of cases concerned events which occurred in the last years, that is 2018 (35%), 2019 (23%), and 2017 (17%). The most frequent events included those related to incorrect diagnosis (the lack of correct diagnosis), which resulted in appropriate activities not being undertaken and a lack of appropriate treatment, e.g., lack of diagnosis of cancer, myocardial infarction, appendicitis, or fracture (26%). The next one was incorrect surgical treatment (17%)—the consequence of which was most frequently a need for repeated surgery and an incorrect conservative treatment of injuries. The obtained results demonstrate that significantly higher funds are spent by medical entities for “restorative” actions (on average EUR 1433, which attempt to mitigate against the negative consequences of incorrect decisions or actions in the original treatment (average cost of EUR 814)). Conclusions: The consequences of adverse events include not only health-related harm for the patient, but also long-term social, familial, or professional results. The authors of the article are of an opinion that all the conducted analyses and conclusions drawn from them should serve the improvement of patient safety. They also form an initial point for establishing recommendations and advice for the improvement of safety and quality of medical services and the reduction of healthcare-related costs. The authors propose covering the parties injured by an adverse event (subjected to “secondary harm”) with a unique, innovative programme of post-accident health care, “Health Reconstruction”. MDPI 2022-06-28 /pmc/articles/PMC9265973/ /pubmed/35805590 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19137932 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Leśniak, Tomasz
Sierocka, Aleksandra
Kostrzewa, Dariusz
Kozłowski, Remigiusz
Marczak, Michał
Financial Expenses and “Losses” of the Polish Healthcare System Resulting from the Occurrence of Adverse Events
title Financial Expenses and “Losses” of the Polish Healthcare System Resulting from the Occurrence of Adverse Events
title_full Financial Expenses and “Losses” of the Polish Healthcare System Resulting from the Occurrence of Adverse Events
title_fullStr Financial Expenses and “Losses” of the Polish Healthcare System Resulting from the Occurrence of Adverse Events
title_full_unstemmed Financial Expenses and “Losses” of the Polish Healthcare System Resulting from the Occurrence of Adverse Events
title_short Financial Expenses and “Losses” of the Polish Healthcare System Resulting from the Occurrence of Adverse Events
title_sort financial expenses and “losses” of the polish healthcare system resulting from the occurrence of adverse events
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9265973/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35805590
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19137932
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