Reduction in patient enrollment in the Veterans Health Administration after media coverage of adverse medical events.

Background: Health care organizations may experience costs associated with preventable adverse events in the form of poor brand image and subsequent patient disenrollment. A retrospective cohort design was used to determine whether media coverage of adverse events that occurred in Veterans Health Administration (VHA) hospitals was associated with subsequent veteran disenrollment.

Methods: Twenty-four newspaper reports of medical adverse events that occurred between 1994 and 1999 within the VHA system were identified. Regionally adjusted changes in enrollment rates for VHA facilities that had reported adverse events were compared with those that had not one year before and one and three years after publication of the newspaper reports.

Results: Facilities that had published reports of adverse events had lower enrollment rates after publication of the report for two groups of veterans.

Conclusions: Within the VHA system, health care organizations involved in adverse events that generated publicity suffered a greater rate of patient disenrollment. If safe patient care practices can reduce adverse publicity, they may enhance corporate value by maintaining enrollment of the patient population.