In large hospitals, a program to reduce delirium in ICU patients, chiefly by reducing the amount of unneeded sedation, has cut rates of the condition in half. Soon it will be implemented in 60 more selected hospitals.
What serious hospital-acquired condition affects 25% of patients over age 70 and up to 82% of patients in the ICU?
I'll give you a few hints:
It's not on Medicare's list of "never events," for which hospitals must forego federal reimbursement.
It doesn't affect the bloodstream, urinary tract, or surgical sites, although patients with this condition may suffer those as well.
It's not falls, pressure ulcers, blood clots, or mismatched transfused blood.
Still stumped?
It's delirium, which Harvard aging researcher Sharon Inouye, MD, describes as "an acute disorder of attention and cognition that is common, serious, costly, under-recognized, and often fatal," with a collective healthcare price tag of more than $164 billion a year in the U.S.
Read the full article here.
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