Seattle Hospital Shuts Down ORs After Finding Fungus
Aspergillus is a common type of mold that poses a low risk to surgical patients, but Seattle Children’s is contacting about 3,000 patients who underwent procedures in the past four months.
Joint Commission Issues De-escalation Guidebook for Healthcare Facilities and Workers
The January publication, titled Quick Safety 47: De-Escalation in Healthcare, acknowledges that violence in healthcare settings is on the rise, so frontline staff need to know de-escalation techniques and solutions to quell potential violence and aggression.
Risk-Adjusted Models for Measuring Hospital Quality of Care
Despite the growing emphasis on and sophistication of quality and safety measurements, few measurement systems take into account one of the most important realities of healthcare: All patients are not created equal, even those with the same diagnosis.
Language Access: Meeting Patient Needs While Increasing Compliance and Improving Outcomes
As we grapple with how to accommodate the needs of limited English proficient patients, as well as patients who are deaf or hard of hearing, it’s important to consider why prioritizing patient language access is so important and how to do this consistently across a healthcare facility or health system.
Sexual Assault Victim Sues the Hospital that Treated Her
The information collected from the victim was stored on an unsecured electronic health record, where it later was allegedly improperly accessed by an x-ray technician, who allegedly passed the information on to the alleged perpetrator of the sexual assault.
CDC Opioid Prescribing Guidelines Clarified
The clarification says that physicians are encouraged to use their best judgment when prescribing opioids. In addition, the guideline is not meant to deny appropriate opioid therapy to anyone suffering from conditions such as cancer and sickle cell disease.
Annual Industry Survey: Dealing With Staff Burnout
Asked to rate their organization’s strategies to deal with staff burnout, just under 40% of respondents to the 2019 Patient Safety & Quality Healthcare Industry Outlook Survey said that their organization is slightly effective at addressing the problem.
CDC Report Finds 3 in 5 Pregnancy-Related Deaths Are Preventable
Released last week, the Vital Signs report found that of the 700 pregnancy-related deaths that occur each year in the United States, about 31% take place during pregnancy, 36% happen during delivery or the week after, and 33% occur one week to one year after delivery.
Your Nurses Can Fix Your Hospital
Nurses can improve quality and outcomes, enhance an organization’s culture, and build relationships with patients, colleagues, and the community—yet to do so, healthcare leadership needs to see them as more than just a cost center.
Guidance for ER Physicians Treating Loved Ones, Colleagues, or Themselves
Similar to situations arising in the treatment of VIP patients, ER physicians treating loved ones or close associates may vary their customary medical care from the standard treatment and inadvertently produce harm rather than benefit.