“Never Events” Spur Medical Device Innovation

Start-ups developing technologies to help hospitals avoid preventable medical errors known as “never events” are developing solutions to nosocomial infections, retained surgical objects, pressure ulcers, and medication errors.

Wherever you side in the contentious debate about the Affordable Care Act, there are aspects of it upon which everyone ought to agree. It uses financial incentives to encourage hospitals to adopt patient safety measures so they’ll avoid leaving surgical instruments in patients or operating on the wrong limb. It carries on the work done by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), which in 2008 began a policy of not reimbursing for care related to certain events on a list of 29 “never events” created by the National Quality Forum, a list that has lengthened since 2008 and been carried over from Medicare to Medicaid patients. (See Exhibit 1.)

Never events are serious, largely preventable adverse events that cause harm to patients in a health care setting and increase the cost of care. The annual cost for the five...

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