Joint Commission Data Indicates that 2023 Sentinel Events Approached 2022’s Record High

Sentinel events are significant medical mistakes that affect patient safety and result in severe temporary harm, permanent harm, or death. The data compiled by the Joint Commission for 2023 found that sentinel events were close to 2022’s record high. In 2023, there were 1411 reported and reviewed events. Of these, eighteen percent led to patient death. Fifty-seven percent led to severe temporary harm. Eight percent resulted in permanent harm. Twelve percent of these patients had to stay for an extended period in the hospital and go through more treatment. If you or a loved one experienced a sentinel event, you may be entitled to compensation. The experienced Chicago-based medical malpractice lawyers of Moll Law Group may be able to represent you.

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Most sentinel events are preventable. They can be the result of miscommunications, teamwork failures, and failure to adhere to standard policies and procedures. As in the previous 5 years, the 2023 data revealed that the most frequent sentinel events during 2023 were falls. They comprised 48% of all the sentinel events the Joint Commission reviewed. They were up 6 percentage points from falls in 2022. And in 2019, by contrast, patient falls only made up 18% of the sentinel events.

Other sentinel events included wrong-site surgery, wrong procedures, wrong patients operated upon, foreign objects left behind during procedures, sexual assaults, rapes, assaults, homicides, treatment delays, suicide, fire, burns, mismanagement of medications, self-harm, and perinatal events. Wrong surgeries (all three types of wrong surgeries) constituted 8% of sentinel events for 2023, as did two other categories, foreign objects left behind in the patient and crimes like rape, sexual assault, assault and homicide. Most of these 1358 events were voluntarily self-reported to the Joint Commission, either by a certified or accredited entity. The rest of the 53 sentinel events were reported by patients, anonymous sources or employees of the providers.

Generally, health care providers are supposed to follow consistently the official procedures put in place, as well as common sense. When health care providers fail to follow standards and practices meant to stop patient harm and, as a result, a patient suffers injury or death, the provider may be held accountable in a medical malpractice lawsuit. In general, to establish the right to compensation in this type of case, our attorneys must establish that a doctor or other provider failed to meet the professional standard of care applicable to the particular situation, and that a patient’s injuries are actually and legally the result of that failure. For example, in the case of an oncologist’s delay for a procedure to treat cancer, such as radiation, we’d need to establish that the delay failed to meet the professional standard of care and that the failure, rather than the cancer itself, resulted in the losses being claimed.

If you were injured or a loved one died due to sentinel events, call the seasoned Chicago-based medical malpractice lawyers of Moll Law Group for a consultation about your legal options. Billions have been recovered in cases around the country with which we’ve been involved. Please complete our online form or call us at 312.462.1700.