Patients who are older, don’t speak English, and don’t have a high school education are more likely to experience harm during a hospital stay in Canada, according to new research. The Canadian Institute for Health Information measured preventableharmful events from 2023 to 2024, such as bed sores and medication errors,experienced by patients who received acute care in hospital. The research published Thursday shows patients who don’t speak English or French are 30 per cent more likely to experience harm.
Patients without a high school education are 20 per cent more likely to endure harm compared to those with higher education levels. The report also found that patients 85 and older are five times more likely to experience harm during a hospital stay compared to those under 20. “The goal of this report is to get folks thinking about equity as being a key dimension of the patient safety effort within a hospital,” says Dana Riley, an author of the report and a program lead on CIHI’s population health team.
When a health-care provider and a patient don’t speak the same language, that can result in the administration of a wrong test or procedure, research shows. Similarly, Riley says a lower level of education is associated with a lower level of health literacy, which can result in increased vulnerability to communication errors. “It’s fairly costly to the patient and it’s costly to the system,” says Riley, noting the average hospital stay for a patient who e.