In his capacity as Inspector General (IG) of Medicare, Daniel Levinson is unstintingly focused on patient care in America's hospitals, specifically transparency in reporting medical errors and acts of medical malpractice and making continual improvements in patient outcomes.

He's not too happy these days.

Last year, Levinson discovered that about 180,000 Medicare patients died in the United States from maltreatment received in hospitals across the country.

In an effort to do something about that, Levinson has focused efforts this year on tracking reports of serious errors that are made and fixing them.

In a report released earlier this week, it is clear that much work needs to be done on that front. The IG study reveals deficiencies in reporting, monitoring and compliance across all levels of the medical community, from hospital and stage agencies to certification checkers and Medicare inspectors themselves.

A major problem is that, following government inspectors' discoveries of medical errors, those mistakes are frequently not summarized and reported further to national rating agencies that accredit hospitals.

That omission has materially adverse consequences. For starters, it means that underperforming hospitals continue to participate in Medicare, without penalty. Moreover, it means that the hospitals often never learn what mistakes they are making and thus revisit them on successive patients.

Levinson wants state agencies to better monitor hospitals within their jurisdictions. He also wants state inspectors to routinely report serious errors -- also known as "immediate jeopardy complaints" -- to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).

In turn, he states that CMS inspectors should ensure that state compliance units are actively informing hospitals of the errors that are being made and ensuring that the mistakes are eliminated. CMS staff members also need to routinely notify accrediting agencies of all serious errors.

Source: USA Today, "Medicare report: Improve tracking of serious hospital errors" Nov. 1, 2011