Nurses At The Frontline of Hand Hygiene
Hospitals are always looking for ways to improve hand hygiene at their facility, given both the financial incentive of avoiding fines and patient safety concerns. The Mayo Clinic in Florida expanded the role of nurses in hand-hygiene compliance, making them the frontline advocates and “watchdogs” of hand hygiene.
Culture Building Tops List of Must-Have Leadership Skills
Cultivating a culture, communicating, and building a team are the most important leadership skills for facing the demands of an evolving healthcare landscape. So say the nearly 500 executives, clinical leaders, and clinicians who responded to the NEJM Catalyst Insights Council’s recent leadership survey.
ACS Lays Out Attire Guidelines for Surgeons
By Alexandra Wilson Pecci In addition to reflecting patients’ preferences for a professional manner of dress, the attire guidelines for surgeons also incorporate concerns over quality of care and patient safety. Wearing soiled scrubs in front of family members, letting surgical masks dangle, and leaving large sideburns uncontained during surgery are all no-nos for … Continued
Texas Institute for Patient Safety Takes Aim at Medical Students
New collaborative effort will focus on incorporating patient safety into medical school.
In May, the University of North Texas (UNT) Health and Science Center announced a new collaborative aimed at improving patient care throughout the state and reducing medical errors across the continuum of care.
Aligning Corporate Culture in Newly Acquired Hospitals
By Ahmad Chaudhry, PhD, MBA Organizational culture is defined as “the way things are done” within an organization (Certo, 2006). The ways an organization conducts its business, treats its employees, allows freedom in decision-making, and manages the flow of information all help build culture. Researchers define organizational culture as the set of shared values and … Continued
ISMP: Turn Short-Term Fixes Into Long-Term Remedies
Healthcare practitioners are repeatedly challenged by unexpected problems they encounter due to both large and small work-system failures that hinder patient care. The list of failures is varied and quite long, often making it difficult or impossible to execute tasks as designed (Edmondson, 2004).
Medical Errors Are The Third Leading Cause of Death: Now What?
Medical errors account for more than 250,000 deaths each year, ranking it third on the CDC’s list of common causes of death behind heart disease and cancer, but ahead of chronic respiratory disease, suicide, and car accidents, according to a recent study published in The BMJ.
Beyond Empowerment: Patients, Paradigms, and Social Movements
A conversation with “e-Patient Dave” deBronkart
By Susan Carr
Dave deBronkart, known on the Internet as e-Patient Dave, is one of the world’s best-known evangelists for the patient engagement movement. A 2007 survivor of stage IV kidney cancer, he discovered the movement in 2008 and started blogging about it as a hobby. In 2009, he moved his electronic hospital data to a personal health record, which triggered a series of events that landed him on the front page of The Boston Globe (Wangsness, 2009). Invitations to attend policy meetings in Washington and give speeches followed. An accomplished speaker in his professional life, he has now participated in 450 healthcare events in 15 countries. His 2011 TED Talk has been seen by almost a half million viewers online.
deBronkart is a child of the Sixties, which leads him to see the e-patient movement as a social revolution, parallel to civil rights and feminism. And as an MIT graduate, he also sees it as the natural evolution of a scientific field. The following is based on a conversation he had recently with Susan Carr, editor of Patient Safety & Quality Healthcare.
Simulation Techniques for Teaching Time-Outs: A Controlled Trial
Incorrect surgery and invasive procedures sometimes occur on the wrong patient, wrong side, or wrong site; are performed at the wrong level; use the wrong implant; or in some way represent a wrong procedure on the correct patient. Although rare, with a reported incidence of 1 in 112,994 cases, incorrect invasive procedures have potentially disastrous consequences for patients, staff, and healthcare organizations (Dillon, 2008). Patients suffer preventable harm, staff may be censured and emotionally traumatized, and healthcare organizations experience a loss of public reputation and trust.
Education: Interdisciplinary Skills Labs for Quality Improvement
By Ariadne K. DeSimone
In spring 2014, one day after taking the United States Medical Licensure Examination: Step 2 Clinical Knowledge, I finally had time to turn my attention to thoughts about my future and to the email messages that had accumulated over the past month. One announcement stood out: the Emory University Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) Open School Chapter was seeking applications for its leadership team. With plans to begin the master of public health (MPH) in health policy and management program at the end of the summer, between my third and fourth years of medical school, I was searching for extracurricular opportunities that would complement my studies. In that moment, as I read the email solicitation, I took a leap of faith. I had never heard of IHI, yet within a week I had applied, interviewed, and accepted a position as director of education for Emory’s Chapter of IHI Open School. I was compelled to act so spontaneously by what I understood to be the vision, mission, and approach of IHI: to work with health systems and other organizations around the world to improve healthcare quality, safety, and value.