Editor’s Notebook

Public Reporting: What Do Consumers Really Need?

By Susan Carr

The authors of our cover story, “Healthcare-Acquired Infections—How Effective is Public Reporting?” report that 32 states plus the District of Columbia are currently required to report rates of hospital-acquired infections (HAIs) in their states. Govednick, McGuckin, and their co-authors review the background for reporting HAI rates and evaluate different methods of reporting the data.

Health IT & Quality

Our Tower of Babel

By Barry P. Chaiken, MD, FHIMSS

The Bible describes why humans speak so many languages:

The narrative of the city of Babel is recorded in Genesis 11:1-9. Everyone on earth spoke the same language. As people migrated from the East, they settled in the land of Shinar. People there sought to make bricks and build a city and a tower with its top in the sky, to make a name for themselves, so that they not be scattered over the world…

Healthcare Analytics

Analytics Drive Transparency Efforts

By Graham Hughes, MD; and Krisa Tailor

A variety of initiatives are dragging U.S. healthcare kicking and screaming from a system where performance data is a closely guarded secret to one where transparency is the norm.

ISMP

Develop Partnerships with Technology and Device Vendors to Improve Staff Training

By The Institute for Safe Medication Practices

When new medication-related technology or a device is implemented in an organization, staff training is critical to optimize its use, employ all its safety features, and prevent misuse that might lead to medication errors. For teaching staff how to use the technology or device, could there be a better partner than the vendor of the product?

Social Technologies

Meeting the Challenges of Population Health

By Christina Thielst, FACHE

Social technologies offer powerful tools that can be applied in healthcare settings to improve the quality of care and patient safety, especially as the U.S. healthcare delivery system transforms to accommodate changes brought about by the Affordable Care Act and aging baby boomers.

Staffing

New Nurse Turnover and Patient Safety: What’s the Problem?

By Karlene M. Kerfoot, PhD, RN, NEA-BC, FAAN

Ineffective staffing programs are often the invisible factors that cause the best intentioned patient safety programs to collapse. Positive patient care outcomes depend on a “point of excellence” where the clinician and the patient interact synergistically every time. Variability between clinicians because of nurse turnover blocks the chances of achieving excellence, which is particularly harmful when it involves the new nurse.

Special Advertising Section

Infection Control: Basic and Advanced

By Tom Inglesby

An estimated 30,800 fewer invasive methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infections occurred in the United States in 2011 compared to 2005, according to a study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s the good news.

News

Strategic Radiology Establishes PSO to Improve Quality and Safety

By Susan Carr

Early this year Strategic Radiology Patient Safety Organization LLC was announced as a component entity of Strategic Radiology LLC, an affiliation of 16 group practices representing more than 1,200 radiologists. The new patient safety organization (PSO) was listed by the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services on June 19, 2013, signifying that its certifications have been accepted by the Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality (AHRQ) and making it the first radiology-specific PSO in the country.