Table 1.

Incidence, cost, and preventability of events in the eight harm domains from the peer-reviewed literature.

Patient safety domain	Population (years): incidence	Annual total cost adjusted to U.S. (2019) dollarsa	Population: % preventable
Healthcare-associated infections	Inpatients (2015 data): 3.2%11	$10.7 billion12 [five significant HAIs]	Inpatients: 65% to 70%13 [CABSI or CAUTI]; 55%13 [VAP or SSI]
Adverse drug events	Inpatients (2014 data): 2.1%22 Present on admission (2014 data): 5.1%22	$30.0 billion22	Inpatients: 28%23
Venous thromboembolism	Inpatients (2013 review): 3.3%7	$15.1 to $30.4 billion28	Inpatient to 90 days after discharge: 70%29
Surgical complications	Inpatients (2014–2017 data): 16.0% within 30 days34 [invasive surgery]	$7.5 billion35 [emergency general surgery]	Inpatients: 42.1%36 [emergency non-trauma surgery]
Pressure ulcers	Inpatients (2009–2010 data): 2.7%44	$28.2 billion45	Inpatients: 97%46
Falls	Inpatients (2013 review): 1.1%7	$53.4 billion51	Inpatients: 87.5%46
Decompensation	Inpatients (2013 data): 3.6%57 [septicemia] Inpatients (2005–2015 data): 13.2%58 [failure-to-rescue after complications of trauma surgery]	$25.7 billion57 [septicemia]	Inpatients: 24.2%58 [failure-to-rescue after complications of trauma surgery]
Diagnostic errors	Outpatients (2014 review): at least 5.1%72	Exceeding $100 billionb (ref. 71)	Unknown

CABSI catheter-associated bloodstream infection, CAUTI catheter-associated urinary tract infection, HAI healthcare-associated infection, SSI surgical site infection, U.S. United States, VAP ventilator-associated pneumonia.

^aEstimates adjusted to U.S. (2019) dollars using the Producer Price Index¹⁰.

^bEstimate not adjusted to U.S. (2019) dollars.