A government study released today states that roughly 15,000 Medicare patients die each month due in part to the care they receive at hospitals. The study focuses on understanding adverse events in hospitals, or more specifically, any medical care that causes harm to a patient.

The study included 780 Medicare patients who were discharged from a hospital in October 2008. Those patients suffered from problems such as bed sores, infections and excessive bleeding from blood-thinning drugs.  Of the 780 patients in the study, 12 died as a result of hospital care, five of which were related to blood-thinning medication. Additionally, two other medication-related deaths involved inadequate insulin management resulting in hypoglycemic coma and respiratory failure resulting from over-sedation.

This is simply devastating and completely unacceptable for the roughly 47 million Americans enrolled in Medicare across the country.