Perioperative Pressure Injuries: Protocols and Evidence-Based Programs for Reducing Risk
By Susan M. Scott, BSN, MSN, RN, WOC Over the past five years, the incidence of perioperative hospital-acquired pressure injuries (HAPI) has increased (Chen, Chen, & Wu, 2012), causing patients pain and suffering and costing the U.S. healthcare system $11 billion per year (Brem et al., 2010). Pressure injuries (previously referred to as pressure ulcers) … Continued
Self-Service Calculators for Price Transparency
By Jay Deady Healthcare price transparency is the challenge that just won’t go away, largely because proposed solutions to date leave much to be desired by patients and providers alike. Obviously, few hospitals are enthused about making their chargemaster lists public, and even if they were available, the prices on these lists don’t reflect what … Continued
OSHA Compliance: It’s More Than Just Worker Safety
By Richard Best Organizations across all industries are required to follow the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) regulations in order to support a safe and healthful workplace. For healthcare facilities, compliance efforts span everything from safeguarding environmental conditions to preventing hazardous materials exposure to ensuring ergonomically correct procedures. Although OSHA focuses on preserving worker … Continued
Aligning Corporate Culture in Newly Acquired Hospitals
By Ahmad Chaudhry, PhD, MBA Organizational culture is defined as “the way things are done” within an organization (Certo, 2006). The ways an organization conducts its business, treats its employees, allows freedom in decision-making, and manages the flow of information all help build culture. Researchers define organizational culture as the set of shared values and … Continued
Advancing the Role of Nursing, Optimizing Quality Clinical Care
By Dan O’Connor, RN As health information technology (IT) continues to evolve, leveraging more clinical information and adapting to changes in quality reporting, informatics is assuming a larger role in nursing practice. A new and exciting role outside traditional nursing, nursing informatics integrates data, information, and knowledge to support patient and provider decision-making through information … Continued
Strategies for Delivering LGBT-Inclusive Care
By Jennifer Comerford, MJ, OTR/L, CHC, HEM; and Cynthia Wallace, CPHRM Discrimination against individuals who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT) has been common in many contexts, including healthcare. Consider the following de-identified events reported to the ECRI Institute PSO, a federally certified patient safety organization (PSO), from January 2013 through mid-2015: Physicians … Continued
Health IT and Diagnostic Safety: Promise and Peril
By Susan Carr When it comes to information technology (IT), clinicians and hospitals might advise, “Be careful what you wish for.” Embraced as the answer to many of healthcare’s safety problems, technology provides useful tools that may improve but in no way guarantee safety. In fact, health IT can introduce as well as prevent or … Continued
MACRA Targets Meaningful in Meaningful Use
By Barry P. Chaiken, MD, MPH The 2015 Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA) opened the way for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) to streamline the quality improvement and healthcare information technology programs it built over the past several years. Since the passage of the 2009 HITECH Act, the quality … Continued
Editor’s Notebook: Measures That Matter
Access to large amounts of data about care delivery and patient outcomes combined with increased concern for poor quality and high cost have led to the development of what Beth McGlynn, director of Kaiser Permanente’s Center for Effectiveness and Safety Research, recently referred to as the “quality measurement industrial complex.” As the number of measures … Continued
ISMP: Turn Short-Term Fixes Into Long-Term Remedies
Healthcare practitioners are repeatedly challenged by unexpected problems they encounter due to both large and small work-system failures that hinder patient care. The list of failures is varied and quite long, often making it difficult or impossible to execute tasks as designed (Edmondson, 2004).