Fourth Annual HealthGrades Patient Safety in American Hospitals Study

From the Washington Post article on this study:

The excess cost to Medicare associated with patient safety incidents was $8.6 billion from 2003 to 2005.Ten of 16 types of patient-safety incidents increased over the three years of the study, by an average of almost 12 percent. The greatest increases were in post-operative sepsis (about 34.3 percent); post-operative respiratory failure (18.7 percent); and selected infections due to medical care (about 12.2 percent).

Click here to access the WP article.