For more than 100 years, the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) has entertained audiences in Symphony Hall, one of the finest musical halls in the world. As information technology advanced, the BSO deployed numerous systems to manage ticketing, payroll, and personnel management in an effort to automate processes and lower costs.

In healthcare, real-time location systems (RTLS) have for a long time been thought of primarily as asset-tracking systems, useful mainly for keeping track of equipment such as wheelchairs, gurneys, and infusion pumps. But RTLS systems are now being used to protect the safety of healthcare patients, from infants to sufferers of Alzheimer’s disease.

This is the fourth and final article in a series on patient- and family-centered care. In it, Valerie continues the story of her son Max, who was born with a congenital cardiac anomaly, and describes how she intercepted a medical error before it reached him.

The Joint Commission and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services mandate that facilities have a way to track adverse events. Some states also have reporting requirement for certain types of adverse events.

Patient safety has been a priority in the healthcare industry for 15 years. Despite the call to action provided by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) in 1999 (Kohn, Corrigan & Donaldson, 2000), studies 5 and 10 years later revealed that while improvements in safety have been made…

Risk management professionals should not take lightly the complexity associated with providing healthcare services. While regulations, third-party payer requirements, and licensing/accreditation standards contribute to this complexity, formalized policies and procedures can mitigate it by promoting workplace safety, regulatory compliance, and the delivery of safe, high-quality patient care.

Emergency evacuation preparedness is on every health facility manager’s priority list. If patients are not provided with safe and realistic means of evacuation in the event of an emergency, how can an organization claim it provides quality care at the facility?

Pay-for-performance initiatives have put hospital readmissions front-and-center in the national healthcare discussion. Now in its second year, for example, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program (HRRP) continues to evolve…

Are you ready for the design changes coming soon for enteral feeding device connectors? While the Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP) and other organizations and agencies have repeatedly publicized upcoming global changes with all enteral device connectors, we are not confident…

The Society of American Gastrointestinal and Endoscopic Surgeons (SAGES) has launched the Fundamental Use of Surgical Energy™ (FUSE) training program.