Medicare Releases Rates For Hospital Acquired Complications

New data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid services shows some higher complication rates than average at several area hospitals.

The new online data base at the Medicare website shows rates for eight so-called 'never' events.  Those are complications Medicare officials believe should never happen in hospitals. Those incidents include patients developing bedsores, or doctors leaving objects inside their surgical patients. Medicare has stopped reimbursing hospitals for many of these hospital acquired complications. 

Patients at Duke, UNC Hospital and WakeMed Raleigh all had a greater chance of developing bedsores than the national average. Patients at WakeMed Raleigh had a higher than average number of falls while hospitalized. And patients at at UNC acquired urinary infections in the hospital at a rate three times the national average and they developed central line catheter infections at five times the national rate.