Leapfrog Leader Pushes for Adoption of Expanded Medical Error Policy
Leapfrog is promoting a nine-point Never Event Policy to help health systems and hospitals address catastrophic medical errors. The nonprofit group defines a never event as egregious mistakes such as surgery performed on the wrong patient or foreign objects left inside a patient after surgery.
How BJC HealthCare Cut Patient Harm Events 75% by Targeting 5 Factors
In 2008, St. Louis-based BJC HealthCare launched a patient safety and quality improvement initiative that was designed to dramatically reduce patient harm events over a five-year period and sustain the reductions for an additional five years.
Multiple Injection Safety Violations Led to NJ Outbreak
Investigators found 41 patients with osteoarthritis contracted the rare infection following injections in their knee joints, with 33 requiring surgery to remove damaged tissue. The investigation found practices including lack of hand washing to inappropriate reuse of medication vials.
Preventing Catheter-Associated Urinary Tract Infections in Adult ICUs: A Three-Pronged Approach
Based on the severity and urgency of preventing CAUTIs, the University of Rochester Medical Center coordinated a project team to collect and analyze CAUTI data and further identify prevention techniques in adult ICUs.
The Chronic Issue of Cybersecurity
Healthcare institutions are vulnerable cyber targets, with thousands of patient records to protect and a federal requirement to comply with HIPAA and HITECH. These institutions lack the staffing (and sometimes the awareness) to prevent personal health data from being accessed and held by threat actors.
How Natural Language Processing Helps Advance Healthcare Quality and Patient Safety
Over the last decade or so, the industry has made enormous progress in digitizing significant amounts of clinical, administrative, and billing data, but this effort has not come without problems.
Steps Toward Better, More Efficient EVS Results
By: Steve Zimmerman, MBA, CHESP, T-CSCT, Director of Healthcare Services for ServiceMaster Clean Healing is the goal of every hospital. To promote healing, hospitals must provide an infection-free environment. The work of the environmental services department (EVS) is vital to that effort. EVS is far more than just housekeeping. In addition to cleaning floors and … Continued
Rethinking ED Imaging
CT isn’t always the best solution for an individual’s problem, and uncertain or inaccurate diagnoses can actually lengthen the amount of time needed for patient care. This is particularly true when it comes to effectively diagnosing certain types of neuro-related cases.
When Parents Bring Children to Appointments, Does Treatment Suffer?
The researchers found that for 70% of doctor’s visits, patients came with their kids. This occurred far more frequently for scheduled appointments than emergency visits. Parents quickly lost their focus on the primary task, while caregivers became distracted by repeated interruptions.
Patient Safety Awards Hold Hospitals Accountable
The Leapfrog report found that if all hospitals had an avoidable death rate equivalent to “A” hospitals, 50,000 lives would have been saved, versus 33,000 lives that would have been saved by “A” level performance in 2016.