Sage Products Honored by WOCN for Support of Research Mission

Sage Products Inc. was honored by the Wound Ostomy and Continence Nurses (WOCN) Society at the opening of the WOCN’s 44th annual conference June 10 in Charlotte, N.C., for its longtime support of the organization’s research mission. Sage Vice President of Marketing Terry Boersma accepted the award on behalf of the company.

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Healthcare CEOs Develop Checklist to Save Lives and Money

Collaborating under the auspices of the Institute of Medicine (IOM), CEOs and senior executives from eleven leading hospitals and health systems have developed a comprehensive checklist to promote high-value health care—care that delivers better results at reduced cost.

Released today, the CEO Checklist for High-Value Health Care is a Discussion Paper from the Institute of Medicine in which the authors present a Checklist of ten strategies that have proven effective in reducing waste and improving outcomes. The Checklist is available online at www.iom.edu/CEOChecklist.

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Editor’s Notebook: Culture’s Reciprocal Rewards

Editor’s Notebook

Culture’s Reciprocal Rewards

Spring is a busy season for conferences. In May, I attended a few and missed a few because there weren’t enough hours and days in the month. At the ones I did attend, the effect of an institution’s culture on patient safety was a common theme.

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Corporate Compliance: OIG Report Critical of CMS Handling of Serious Adverse Events

Corporate Compliance

OIG Report Critical of CMS Handling of Serious Adverse Events

In late 2011, the Office of Inspector General (OIG) released a report that examined CMS’s response to serious adverse events in hospitals. The report, Adverse Events in Hospitals: Medicare’s Responses to Alleged Serious Events (Levinson, 2011), concludes that “Medicare’s system of hospital oversight missed opportunities to address patient safety in its response to alleged serious adverse events.”

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Health IT & Quality: Print Me a Pill

Health IT & Quality

Print Me a Pill

During the first Star Trek series released in the mid 1960s, the creators introduced viewers to several magical devices—the Communicator, the Padd, the Replicator, and the Transporter. Although building the latter device requires the repeal of several laws of physics, the other three commonly exist today for the public to use. Smart phones are the Communicator of today allowing us to speak, text, or email to anyone around the world who might have a similar device.

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ISMP: Short of Everything Except Errors: Harm Associated with Drug Shortages

ISMP

Short of Everything Except Errors: Harm Associated with Drug Shortages

In the November 3, 2011, ISMP newsletter, we asked hospital pharmacy staff to let us know if the drug shortage problem in the United States has continued to result in harmful outcomes for hospitalized patients. At that time, an Associated Press article had just reported 15 deaths in the prior 15 months that were linked directly to drug shortages (Johnson, 2011). (Thirteen of these deaths had also been reported to ISMP.) In response to our request for information, nearly 100 practitioners took our short survey and strengthened our belief that the ongoing drug shortage crisis is extracting a significant toll on patient safety.

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American College of Surgeons: Four Critical Elements of an Effective Quality Improvement Process

American College of Surgeons

Four Critical Elements of an Effective Quality Improvement Process

More than a decade since the Institute of Medicine’s (IOM) landmark To Err Is Human report put a spotlight on quality improvement and patient safety, there has been little reduction in the rate of adverse events, according to The New England Journal of Medicine (2010).

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