Quality Measures and Improvement in Addiction Treatment
Historically, alcohol or drug use has been used as the primary measure of outcome in clinical trials, but how it has been measured has varied. Alcohol and drug use have been measured in varying ways: for example, as a percentage reduction in use over varying periods of time, number of days of abstinence over varying periods of time, or percentage of days abstinent over varying periods of time.
Massachusetts Weighs Hospital Wayfinding Regulation
The bills currently working their way through the Massachusetts legislature would require the state Department of Public Health to set regulations that require all Massachusetts hospitals to meet certain criteria to ensure safe patient access at all times to an emergency room or department. These measures would include indoor and outdoor signage, indoor and outdoor lighting, and best-practice wayfinding.
Industry Focus: Q&A: How to Improve Patient Handoffs
These transfers can be as dramatic as air-lifting a patient to a remote specialty hospital and telling the EMTs that the patient thinks he can fly and will try to jump out of the helicopter, or as mundane as a nurse ending her shift and telling her replacement the patient has been taken off a certain medicine. In both cases, not passing on this information can potentially harm the patient.
Risk Management and the Transgender Hospital Admission
These issues challenge healthcare providers and risk managers because not addressing them can result in a distrust of the medical team, a reluctance to disclose critical healthcare concerns out of fear of retaliation or embarrassment, and a greater risk of patient dissatisfaction and litigation.
A Lot Happens When You Report a Hazard or Error to ISMP—There’s No ‘Black Hole’ Here!
When ISMP receives a hazard or error report, it is entered into one of our databases and initially reviewed by an ISMP nurse or pharmacy technician analyst. Since most reports submitted to ISMP include the reporter’s email address, ISMP sends an email to the reporter to confirm receipt of the report and to thank him or her for reporting.
PSQH Innovation Award Winner: Cleveland Clinic Develops Algorithm to Power Early Warning System
The hospital and health system set up an early warning system (EWS) as a way to alert nurses to subtle changes in patient condition. But alerts alone aren’t enough, so they also developed an integrated workflow that supports patient assessment, contextual evaluation of clinical data, provider notification, interdisciplinary collaboration, and timely intervention.
Study: Staff Will Work Through Illness Despite Sick Policy
Researchers conducted active surveillance from December 2015 through April 2016 for respiratory viral infections among residents and healthcare providers at a 120-bed long-term care facility in the St. Louis area.
From Snow to Achuff: Using Analytics to Drive Clinical Care
The importance of analytics in epidemiology makes a strong case that Snow can also be viewed as one of the founders of clinical visualization. In his work, Snow used statistical techniques and visualizations to make his argument, such as through his cholera dot map.
How is Your System Supporting Overwhelmed Physicians?
Even though there’s more data than ever, few organizations have updated their processes for managing this information overload. But that’s beginning to change. Health systems are finding ways to ease physicians’ burden with solutions that include restructuring staff and putting tools in place to stem the tide of burnout.
Improving Hospital Patient Safety: Six Basic Principles to Guide Our Pursuit
Most Americans encounter the healthcare system in their first seconds of life, as they emerge into the world at one of our birthing hospital units. For many, their last seconds are also spent as a patient in a hospital. Nationally, healthcare appears to be delivered at a 2%–4% error rate, with over 18 million adverse events occurring per year. Yet despite two decades of intensive quality improvement work at hospitals, little has changed for the better.