Culture of Safety: How to Influence Accountability

Culture of Safety

How to Influence Accountability

 

This Q&A first appeared on the official blog of the Crucial Skills Newsletter—a weekly online publication from the authors of New York Times bestselling books Crucial Conversations, Crucial Accountability, Influencer, and Change Anything.

Read More »

Infection Control : Using Change Management Principles to Improve Infection Control

Infection Control

Using Change Management Principles to Improve Infection Control

 

Change never ends in healthcare. Institutions must constantly adapt to evolving research, regulations, technology, and economic conditions as well as internal crises.
Because change is inevitable, successful organizations prepare for it. They know they must carefully plan the change process so that staff will broadly accept a new protocol, technology, or organizational strategy.
That’s why leaders in healthcare organizations study change management.

Read More »

IOM Plans to Add Diagnostic Error to ‘Quality Chasm’ Series

Editor’s Notebook

IOM Plans to Add Diagnostic Error to ‘Quality Chasm’ Series

Mark L. Graber launched the 6th annual Diagnostic Error in Medicine (DEM) conference with a major announcement. Graber is founder and president of the Society to Improve Diagnosis in Medicine (SIDM), an organization that was formed just prior to last year’s DEM conference. DEM 2013, “Define, Measure, Improve,” was held in September at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago.

Read More »

RFID, Barcoding, RTLS: The Connected Hospital

Special Advertising Section

RFID, Barcoding, RTLS: The Connected Hospital

 

Whether your facility is 40 years old or 4 months old, advances in technology can help increase patient and staff safety while improving efficiency. Tracking people and things throughout the building, monitoring care and medication, and assuring accurate patient identification are all enhanced by technology. Innovations are coming that can make the Connected Hospital a reality.

Read More »

News

News

New Joint Commission Alert Addresses Medical Device Alarm Safety in Hospitals

 

The constant beeping of alarms and an overabundance of information transmitted by medical devices such as ventilators, blood pressure monitors and ECG (electrocardiogram) machines is creating “alarm fatigue” that puts hospital patients at serious risk, according to a Sentinel Event Alert issued by The Joint Commission in April.

Read More »

MITSS: Supporting Patients and Families for More than a Decade

MITSS: Supporting Patients and Families for More than a Decade

 

Over the past decade, the patient safety movement has focused much of its attention on prevention, and rightly so. Still, even in the safest of systems, things can, and often do, go wrong. Of late, much has been published regarding the “second victim,” a term used to describe healthcare providers finding themselves on the sharp end of an error or adverse event. Yet, little has been documented about the emotional impact on patients and their families and the need for support following these events.

Read More »

Addressing Alarm Problems in the Emergency Department

Addressing Alarm Problems in the Emergency Department

 

Stand for a few moments in the middle of your emergency department (ED) to just listen and observe. How many alarms do you hear? Can you distinguish where each alarm is coming from and whether it’s a physiologic monitor or ventilator or infusion pump alarm? Does each alarm connote the level of urgency needed for the nurse to respond promptly and appropriately? Do you observe nurses scurrying to respond? Or do the alarms perpetuate while no one responds?

Read More »