Reducing Falls by Engaging Patients
When clinicians walk into a patient’s room at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, they only need a quick glance at a laminated, color-coded sheet of paper next to the bed to understand the fall risks of that patient.
Top Patient Safety Concerns Touch on IT, Patient Identification Issues
This year’s list of top patient safety concerns proves that health systems continue to battle health IT implementation issues, while also struggling with patient safety stalwarts like disinfection, medication errors, and even patient identification.
Working With Law Enforcement to Better Protect Your Healthcare Workers and Patients
One might argue that the most effective managers are those who don’t manage alone. Effective managers listen to their employees and customers and incorporate their feedback into training and future management decisions. They work with dependable partners to improve processes and conditions.
Q&A: Are Nursing Strikes on the Rise?
Labor disputes between nurses and hospitals are nothing new, but over the past few weeks we’ve seen a lot of national news stories about nurses going on strikes.
Opioid Prescribing May be Impervious to State Laws
Drug monitoring laws are on the rise, but their effectiveness in curbing the prescribed use of hydromorphone, oxycodone, and other narcotics for pain is unclear.
Medical Errors Are The Third Leading Cause of Death: Now What?
Medical errors account for more than 250,000 deaths each year, ranking it third on the CDC’s list of common causes of death behind heart disease and cancer, but ahead of chronic respiratory disease, suicide, and car accidents, according to a recent study published in The BMJ.
How Ohio Hospitals Are Tackling Sepsis
Last year Ohio’s hospitals began a campaign to reduce sepsis encounters and related deaths by 30% by 2018. Nine months into the initiative, the OHA is reporting an 8% reduction in mortality.
Millions of Health Records for Sale by Hacker Who Allegedly Stole Them
The protected health information (PHI) of nearly 10 million individuals was allegedly posted for sale by the hacker who stole the data, according to Motherboard.
The hacker posted the first batch of approximately 655,000 records on June 25, and posted 9 million alleged patient insurance details on June 27.
CDC: 30% of Outpatient Antibiotics Are Prescribed Inappropriately
A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) found that approximately 30% of antibiotic prescriptions written in the outpatient setting were inappropriate. Researchers found that several common conditions contributed to the majority of inappropriate antibiotic prescribing. Forty-four percent of outpatient antibiotic prescriptions were written to treat acute respiratory conditions, sinus infections, … Continued
80% of ER Providers Hesitant to Ask Patients About Gender Sexual Orientation
For emergency medicine clinicians who learned to defer to patients’ privacy on sexual orientation and gender identification, asking questions is a major culture change.