Sentinel events in 2022 increased by 19% over the previous year’s numbers—a spike of 78% since 2020, according the latest annual review of sentinel event data released by the Joint Commission last week. About 1 in 5 sentinel events is associated with a patient death.
Modern Healthcare and Becker’s highlighted these and other bleak statistics in articles that quickly followed the Joint Commission’s data release. Meanwhile, quality and patient safety leaders have been sounding the alarm since the pandemic began in 2020.
But have these alarms cut through the din of today’s overwhelming operational challenges?
“The last few years have proven that despite many efforts focused on quality and safety, patient care delivery is not resilient to either the daily or the pandemic-induced stresses in the system. Quite the opposite.”
