Twenty-six states operate event-reporting systems. However, according to two reports released by the HHS' inspector general's office, 15 of those states said that hospitals don't always report their adverse events.
The reports point out that there are many barriers to reporting adverse events. In particular, the system depends on workers to report the events, and sometimes they don't feel they have time; other times they even fear punitive action.
Another major problem that makes it difficult to get overall numbers of adverse events by state is that events are reported to a variety of different oversight agencies, each of which may have a different system for tallying the adverse events.
To learn more about the reports:
- read this Modern Healthcare piece