Coordinated care — long touted as the key to better and more cost-effective care — is encouraged with financial rewards and penalties under the 2010 federal health care law, as well as by private insurers. But confusion about who is managing a patient’s care — and lack of coordination among those caregivers — are endemic. A 2010 federal report projected that 15,000 Medicare patients every month suffered such serious harm in the hospital that it contributed to their deaths. The first piece explored the human toll of these mistakes and how and why they continue to happen. The second offered a consumer tip sheet on how to stay safe in the hospital.
