The Joint Commission updated its sentinel event statistics through the end of 2015, according to an article on its website.
Data from the 9,581 incidents reviewed from 2004 through the end of 2015 show that a total of 9,884 patients have been affected by these events, with 56.1 percent resulting in the patient’s death, 863 (8.7 percent) resulting in permanent loss of function and 29.5 percent resulting in unexpected additional care and/or psychological impact.
The fifth more common root cause is the physical environment — with 202 events.
Falls were the third most common events. Fires were the 10th.
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