Patient Safety & Quality Healthcare - News and analysis dedicated to healthcare improvement

Digitally Driven: Link Technology to Process Change

Measuring digital success via number of dashboards delivered fails to recognize the limited capacity of managers and staff to ingest dashboards and meaningfully act upon them. Digitally driven organizations tie each dashboard to specific objectives of the organization and ensure that users find the dashboards helpful in completing their work.

Arming PCPs to Screen and Intervene on Behavioral Health

At a time when the prevalence of drug overdoses is contributing to a reduction in life expectancy, when alcohol accounts for one in every 10 adult deaths in the United States, and when depression and suicide rates continue to rise at an unprecedented rate, there is renewed impetus to treat substance use and mental health issues like other health conditions.

Joint Commission Offers Drug Diversion Advice, Resources Amid Growing Opioid Epidemic

The alert newsletter, Quick Safety 48, was released in the April issue of Perspectives amid statistics The Joint Commission cited from both the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration and the American Nurses Association, which together suggest that 10% of healthcare workers in the U.S. are abusing drugs of some sort.

Dangerous Wrong-Route Errors With Tranexamic Acid—A Major Cause for Concern

When given intraspinally instead of a local anesthetic, tranexamic acid is a potent neurotoxin with a mortality rate of about 50% and is almost always harmful to the patient. Survivors of intraspinal tranexamic acid injection often experience seizures, permanent neurological injury, and paraplegia.

Study Finds Major Problems With PPE Doffing

According to a report published in May 2019 in Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology, a journal from The Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America, researchers found that more than a third (39%) of the 125 healthcare workers observed acquired a multidrug-resistant organism during a patient encounter.

Report Focuses on Risk to Patients From ED Errors

The study, titled Emergency Department Risks: Through the Lens of Liability Claims, is the latest in a series of reports that explores the increased risk and liability brought on by several patient safety issues in healthcare, and offers suggestions on how to improve.

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High-risk Patients Have Lower Mortality Rates at Major Teaching Hospitals
by HealthLeaders Media, October 22, 2019

The 30-day mortality rate for these high-risk patients was 15.9% at major teaching hospitals, compared with 18.2% at non-teaching hospitals, according to researchers at Penn Medicine, who examined the medical records of 350,000 Medicare beneficiaries who underwent general, vascular or orthopedic surgery at 2,780 hospitals across the country, including 340 major teaching hospitals.
Knock Pressure Injury Rates Down to Zero
by HealthLeaders Media, October 22, 2019

In 2018, the team set out to achieve zero Stage 3 and Stage 4 pressure injuries developed by patients after a hospital admission. Through education, risk assessment, and other prevention protocols, the goal was met in quarter three of 2018. In recognition of its work, the team received the 3M Award for Excellence in Skin Safety in June 2019.
Opioid Epidemic Linked to $205B in Excess Healthcare Spending Over 4 Years
by HealthLeaders Media, October 18, 2019

The $205 billion attributable to excess healthcare spending between 2015 and 2018 included providing medical care for opioid addicts and infants born with neonatal opioid-related conditions, and other family members bearing costs associated with those diagnoses.
AdventHealth Uses AI to Balance Capacity Issues Among 9 Hospitals
by HealthLeaders Media, October 15, 2019

Fueled by AI and predictive analytics, which amass data from multiple sources, a team of more than 50 nurses, EMS and flight dispatchers, transport techs, and other specialists work in the 12,000-square-foot facility with 60 monitors to oversee activities on nine campuses with 3,200 beds and more than 2 million patient visits per year.
CDC Urges Pregnant Women to Get Vaccinated
by HealthLeaders Media, October 11, 2019

The lack of vaccination puts the health of both the mother and child at risk, the CDC said, as women with influenza are twice as likely to be hospitalized if they are pregnant and nearly 70% of whooping cough deaths came from babies less than two months old.

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Digitally Driven: Link Technology to Process Change

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Arming PCPs to Screen and Intervene on Behavioral Health

Joint Commission Offers Drug Diversion Advice, Resources Amid Growing Opioid Epidemic

De-Escalation: Mitigating Violence in Healthcare

Dangerous Wrong-Route Errors With Tranexamic Acid—A Major Cause for Concern

Study Finds Major Problems With PPE Doffing

Report Focuses on Risk to Patients From ED Errors

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