Report: Hospitals are seeing improvements in patient safety, outcomes

The American Hospital Association (AHA) recently released a report that found patient safety in hospitals and health systems across the nation has continued to improve. The report, which used data analyzed by Vizient, examined key safety and quality metrics from the fourth quarter of 2019 to the second quarter of 2025. It found that despite caring for a sicker patient population, the focus on safety has led to improved patient outcomes and reduced infections.

The primary analysis was based on more than 1,300 hospitals, with data on more than 10 million inpatients and 180 million outpatients annually. A cohort of 705 general, acute care hospitals were identified to have a complete dataset from the fourth quarter of 2019 to the second quarter of 2025. Among the key findings from the data of these hospitals, five improvements were recognized, including:

• Hospitals improved patient outcomes: Hospitalized patients in the second quarter of 2025 were on average nearly 30% more likely to survive than expected given the severity of their illnesses compared to the fourth quarter of 2019.
• Hospitals saved more lives: It is estimated that hospitals’ efforts to improve safety led to more than 300,000 Americans hospitalized from April 2024 through March 2025 surviving episodes of care they would not have in 2019.
• Hospitals cared for more patients with greater complexity: Hospitals cared for more patients in the second quarter of 2025 compared to the fourth quarter of 2019, with increases in volume by 4%. Patients in 2025 also had more complex and severe conditions.
• Hospitals reduced infections: Hospitals’ central line-associated bloodstream infections and catheter-associated urinary tract infections in the second quarter of 2025 were at lower rates (24% and 25%, respectively) than in the fourth quarter of 2019.
• Hospitals significantly increased preventive cancer screenings: Key screenings for breast and colorectal cancer increased 95% from the fourth quarter of 2019 to the second quarter of 2025.

A critical but often unseen contributor to these improvements is accurate medical coding, which transforms clinical documentation into standardized data that drives everything from care coordination and quality measurement to patient safety initiatives. When diagnoses, procedures, and outcomes are coded correctly, hospitals gain reliable data to identify trends, reduce errors, support clinical decision-making, and improve overall patient outcomes.

More details on AHA’s findings can be found in their published report.

Editor's note: This article originally appeared on JustCoding.