Raise the Bar on Pain Management and Opioids
Hospitals can make their own policies, too. Institute a policy on opioid prescribing to relieve your providers of some decision-making pressure in an age of addiction awareness—and, if you do it right, your providers should still be able to give patients the pain relief they need.
Annual Industry Survey: Second Victim Support
Respondents to the 2018 Patient Safety & Quality Healthcare Industry Outlook Survey indicated that second victim support is an emerging issue, albeit one that many facilities have still not tackled.
Study: Seasonal Spikes in Antibiotic Misuse
The study authors say their findings suggest that “current initiatives to improve the use of antibiotics in outpatient settings may not be enough to change clinicians’ prescribing practices.” And they feel clinicians must be better equipped “with the tools and knowledge to know when antibiotics are needed.”
Annual Industry Survey: Quality Improvement Initiatives
Once a quality improvement initiative has been launched, it can be difficult to keep it on track. Survey respondents were asked about the biggest challenges in maintaining quality initiatives in their organizations. The most cited challenge was the complexity of collecting and communicating a mass of rapidly shifting information with 50%.
Are Second Victims Getting the Help They Need?
A 2013 review of healthcare professionals as second victims, published in Evaluation & The Health Professions, concluded that nearly half of healthcare providers would fit this label at least once in their career. A 2017 survey of surgeons found that 80% recalled having at least one intraoperative adverse event within the past year of their practice. Those affected reported having experienced a substantial emotional impact on their well-being, including strong feelings of sadness, anxiety, and shame.
Use Checklist to Reduce Self-Harm Risks in the ER
With the renewed focus on ligature and self-harm, facilities need to undergo a complete reassessment of the physical environment where patients with behavioral or mental health problems are cared for.
Annual Industry Survey: The Challenges of Data Analytics
Judging by the responses to the 2018 Patient Safety & Quality Healthcare Industry Outlook Survey, organizations are still working on mastering the use of data. Asked how they would rate their use of data analytics to improve patient safety and change behavior, only 23% of respondents said they were highly effective.
Infusion Pump Performance: Flow Accuracy and Continuity Often Don’t Add Up
Pumps undergo extensive pre-market testing, and vendor manuals provide detailed documentation of the results. However, pump performance in the real world often differs significantly from lab results, with a potentially significant impact on patient safety.
Case Study: Harborview Medical Center’s Automated Sepsis Alert System
After a patient is admitted to Harborview, his or her vitals are plugged into the EHR several times each day. The system searches for patterns, trends, and symptoms that might indicate sepsis. If found, a red box appears around the patient’s name and the nurse is assigned a task in the EHR to screen the patient for infection.
Memorial Healthcare Rolls Out New Protocol to Eliminate Wrong-Site Nerve Blocks
A 2015 article in Current Opinion in Anesthesiology puts its best guess of the frequency of wrong-site blocks as 7.5 per 10,000 procedures. A 2018 review of publications reporting on at least 10,000 blocks found a rate of 0.52 to 5.07 wrong-site nerve blocks per 10,000 blocks, unilateral blocks, or “at-risk” procedures.