GAO Report Highlights Three Key Patient Safety Challenges
Agency finds that hospitals struggle with data collection, identifying evidence-based practices, and implementation strategies.
A recent report from a federal watchdog agency offers new insight into the barriers hospitals still face when it comes to addressing patient safety concerns, offering a concise distillation of the key gaps that remain in ongoing efforts to prevent patient harm.
Officials at the Government Accountability Office (GAO) interviewed patient safety experts at six hospitals and six insurers, as well as officials at CMS and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). The six hospitals were selected according to their performance in certain patient safety quality measures.
NPSF Announces DAISY Award 2016 Honorees
The National Patient Safety Foundation along with The Daisy Foundation have announced the winners of the 2016 National Patient Safety Foundation DAISY Awards for Extraordinary Nurses. The award, a derivative of The DAISY Award for Extraordinary Nurses, places special emphasis on patient and workforce safety. Now in its second year, this award is a derivative … Continued
Joint Commission Finalizes New Requirements for CAUTI NPSG
Proposed Joint Commission NPSG focuses on risks of pediatric CT scans
Radiology experts are split on whether the focus on head and chest scan is a valuable use of resources
A proposed National Patient Safety Goal (NPSG) released by The Joint Commission in February takes aim at judicious use of computed tomography (CT) imaging among pediatric patients, requiring hospitals to follow evidence-based guidelines when considering CTs for minor head trauma.
The proposed standard, released as NPSG.17.01.01, would apply to hospitals, ambulatory care facilities, and critical access hospitals. The Joint Commission accepted comments on the proposed requirement through the end of March.
Taking a Patient Safety Cue from Denmark
Denmark’s patient compensation program has helped transform the approach to patient safety in the country, allowing patients a full picture of a potential medical error and prompting physicians to openly confront mistakes, according to an article by ProPublica. Denmark’s approach to medical errors is drastically different from that of the United States. Instead of relying … Continued
Viewpoint: The Surgical Learning Curve
By William A. Hyman, ScD It should come as no surprise that the ability to do a particular surgery is likely to improve over some number of early attempts. A surgeon’s skill could be evaluated in part by measuring his or her complication rate for a given procedure and watching it decrease to a … Continued
Editor’s Notebook: Empowering Data
I spent the weeks leading up to this year’s HIMSS conference working with “e-Patient” Dave deBronkart on our cover story, “Beyond Empowerment: Patients, Paradigms, and Social Movements.” I was still thinking about empowerment as I traveled to Las Vegas in late February to join more than 41,000 people at HIMSS, by far the largest annual health IT conference. In recent years, coming off the euphoria of federally funded incentive payments for electronic health records (EHR), the mood at HIMSS has been subdued by meaningful use requirements and economic challenges. But even though I was admittedly still under Dave’s uplifting influence, I sensed a much more positive, proactive, and—yes—empowered energy at HIMSS16.
Weighing the Pros and Cons of Patient Safety Technology
Although some emerging technology promises a patient safety cure-all, hospitals need to evaluate clinician workflow before implementing new gadgets In the 21st century, technology offers a solution to just about any everyday problem. Don’t know that actor that just came onto your screen? Log onto the IMDB app. Need directions? Just type the address into … Continued
Move to Refine Quality Measures Gaining Momentum
By Tinker Ready, HealthLeaders Complaints about quality measures are as abundant as the measures themselves. But some doctors are doing something about it. They’re working to identify metrics that are “realistic and actually will have an impact on patient care.” Call it pushback, validation, or measurement science. The revolt against the volume and usefulness of outcomes … Continued
Welcome Facility Care Readers!
We are excited to share that Facility Care was recently acquired by HCPro, a division of BLR. We invite you to check out Patient Safety and Quality Healthcare for industry leading coverage of patient safety, quality, and hospital safety news, best practices, and peer submitted case studies. If you have any questions, you can reach … Continued
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.