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.
Immersion Program for Emerging Leaders in Patient Safety
The Academy for Emerging Leaders in Patient Safety (AELPS) (aka Telluride Patient Safety Summer Camp) now offers a three-day immersion program in patient safety and quality education for risk managers, healthcare administrators, and health education faculty. This comprehensive workshop will be held July 27–30 in Napa Valley, California. For 11 years, the AELPS faculty has … Continued
Improvement Interventions and the IOM Aims for Quality: STEEP-7
By Shea Polancich, PhD, RN; Terri Poe, DNP, RN; and Rebecca Miltner, PhD, RN
Healthcare organizations should be continuously looking for ways to improve the quality and safety of the care they provide. The current healthcare environment, however, is complex and constantly changing, making the quest for continuous improvement a challenge. In 2001, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) report Crossing the Quality Chasm highlighted the gap that existed between the current and ideal state of the healthcare industry regarding the quality of patient care. This seminal work illuminated the need to provide care to patients with defined aims—namely, that patient care should be all of the following: safe, timely, effective, efficient, equitable, and patient centered. A call to action ensued for providers in the industry to develop strategies for closing the quality chasm in care delivery in accordance with the IOM aims. Now, 15 years later, there are still opportunities to improve the quality and safety of the healthcare delivery system.
Simulation Techniques for Teaching Time-Outs: A Controlled Trial
Incorrect surgery and invasive procedures sometimes occur on the wrong patient, wrong side, or wrong site; are performed at the wrong level; use the wrong implant; or in some way represent a wrong procedure on the correct patient. Although rare, with a reported incidence of 1 in 112,994 cases, incorrect invasive procedures have potentially disastrous consequences for patients, staff, and healthcare organizations (Dillon, 2008). Patients suffer preventable harm, staff may be censured and emotionally traumatized, and healthcare organizations experience a loss of public reputation and trust.