Report: Hospitalized surgical patient outcomes improve

Hospitalized surgical patients had better outcomes in 2024 than in 2019, an American Hospital Association and Vizient report found. The significant improvement aligned with better performance on patient safety metrics, such as reductions in infections and falls, as well as marked declines in three major surgical patient safety indicators: severe bleeding, sepsis and respiratory failure. The findings build on a report AHA released in collaboration with Vizient in 2024 showing hospitals performed better on key patient safety and quality measures in the first quarter of 2024 than they did before the COVID-19 pandemic. Hospitals’ efforts to improve safety resulted in 200,000 hospitalized Americans between April 2023 and March 2024 surviving care episodes they would not have survived in 2019. (AHA News article, 8/5/25)