Network Seeks to Reduce Drug Diversion, Increase Reporting Rate

So far, the network has tracked drug diversion at 90 hospitals, 28 nursing homes, and dozens of other types of healthcare facilities, including ambulatory surgical centers, assisted living centers, clinics, compounding pharmacies, medical laboratories, mental health facilities, pain clinics, rehabilitation homes, retail pharmacies, and schools.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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