For the fourth year in a row Maryland hospitals saw an increase in medical errors that led to patient deaths or serious disabilities.

In 2023, the most recent year of collected data, the Maryland Department of Health found there were 808 patient deaths or disabilities due to medical errors.

The number is nearly four times the number of error-related deaths from 2019, when the state recorded 212.

In the years prior to 2019, medical errors stayed around the 220 mark, but once COVID hit, MDH started noticing a sharp rise in errors.

“While the increase in adverse events is concerning, a just culture encourages reporting of these events, giving us the opportunity as a state to address these findings to improve patient safety across the state,” MDH’s report states.

From 2022 to 2023 there seems to be a leveling off of errors, with errors increasing from 769 to 808.

That’s compared to 2021 to 2022 when errors jumped from 517 to 769.

However, the continued high error rate could signal that the current level is here to stay.

A majority of the errors are caused by hospital-acquired pressure injuries, where prolonged pressure to the same area causes damage to the tissue.

Falls make up the second most common error, followed by delays in treatment.

“Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been an increase in pressure injuries in healthcare settings,” the report states. “This is multifactorial but is driven largely by the COVID-19 pandemic that resulted in staffing challenges, supply chain issues, patients with multiple comorbidities, and higher patient acuity.”

Pressure injuries are caused by failure to turn a patient with limited mobility, failure to assess a patient’s skin and not properly addressing nutrition.

MDH said in the report that part of the reason for more errors is that hospitals are getting better at reporting them.

However, the department admits that the continued trend is a likely indicator of a higher level of errors likely caused by a shortage in the workforce.