January 2018

By the Numbers
For The Record
Vol. 30 No. 1 P. 34

3
In 2008, about 38% of hospitals used hand-written medication orders; in 2016, fewer than this percentage of hospitals used hand-written orders, according to an American Society of Health-System Pharmacists survey. Additionally, almost 93% of hospitals in 2016 used barcode medication administration systems.

21
This percentage of American adults reports having personally experienced a medical error, and 31% report that someone else with whose care they were closely involved experienced an error, according to a national survey released by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement/National Patient Safety Foundation Lucian Leape Institute and NORC at the University of Chicago.

$73,000
On average, HIT professionals made just over this amount in 2017, a 20% decline from the previous year, according to a survey published by Health eCareers. More than one-half of the HIT professionals indicated they worked specifically in health care informatics and data, where the median annual salary was $46,000, nearly $30,000 less than in 2016.

1 out of 6
An MGMA Stat poll found that this number (17%) of providers are being charged fees for electronic funds transfer payments from health plans, while 51% said there was no fee attached to the transaction, and 32% were unsure.

99
According to a survey by the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists, this percentage of hospitals across the country now uses EHRs, compared with about 31% in 2003.

$2.5 Million
Mount Sinai St. Luke's hospital was sued for this amount for negligently faxing a patient's HIV diagnosis to his employer's fax machine, according to FierceHealthcare. After the patient asked staff to mail a copy of his records to his post office box or his home, a faxed copy of his complete medical records was discovered by his coworkers, which led to the man quitting his job and losing his health insurance.

1,140
A former employee of Our Lady of the Angels Hospital in Louisiana inappropriately accessed this number of patient records between March 17, 2014, and July 25, 2017. An investigation determined the former employee, motivated by curiosity, may have improperly accessed patient records for nearly 15 years, according to Becker's Hospital Review.