CRICO Challenges EMR Complacency
CRICO, the patient safety and medical professional liability company serving the Harvard medical community, has produced a video that puts forth a future vision of how Electronic Medical Records (EMRs) might be embedded into the physician workflow in a manner that would improve health care delivery.
New AHRQ Resource Can Help Prevent Patient Falls in Hospitals
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality has a new online toolkit, “Preventing Falls in Hospitals: A Toolkit for Improving Quality of Care,” that focuses on reducing falls that occur during a patient’s hospital stay.
ECRI Institute PSO Uncovers HIT-related Events in Deep Dive Analysis
The federal government is spending about $19 billion to encourage hospitals, physician practices, and other healthcare organizations to invest in their health information technology (HIT) infrastructure with the goal of improving patient safety and quality through the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act.
Medical Device Interoperability: A ‘Wicked Problem’ of Our Time
Medical Device Interoperability: A ‘Wicked Problem’ of Our Time
A conversation with Julian M. Goldman, MD
Julian M. Goldman, MD, is medical director of biomedical engineering for Partners HealthCare System, a practicing anesthesiologist in the Massachusetts General Hospital and director of the Program on Medical Device Interoperability at MGH and CIMIT (Center for Integration of Medicine and Innovative Technology). He founded the Medical Device “Plug-and-Play” (MD PnP) Interoperability Program in 2004 to enable innovation in patient safety and clinical care by leading the adoption of patient-centric medical device integration. PSQH Editor Susan Carr recently talked with Dr. Goldman about his work at MD PnP and the current state of interoperability.
Nurse Leadership from Bedside to Boardroom
Nurse Leadership from Bedside to Boardroom
There is increasing recognition that nurses must be involved as leaders and decision-makers throughout healthcare, not just at the bedside or within the nursing community. Nurses are executive leaders in health systems and hospitals, of course, and also in professional associations, accrediting organizations, businesses, government, and universities. Within the nursing community, many feel that the skill set nurses need for modern-day practice also makes them valuable contributors throughout health systems, especially in leadership positions.
Automated Care Tools for Population Health Management
Automated Care Tools for Population Health Management
With various forms of value-based reimbursement starting to take hold, healthcare providers have become increasingly interested in new care delivery models centered on population health management (PHM).
Hand Hygiene: Moving Toward the Five Moments
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Hand Hygiene
Moving Toward the Five Moments
Much has been written and discussed about the Five Moments for Hand Hygiene from the World Health Organization (WHO). Most healthcare workers agree that doing hand hygiene at those five events is important to improve patient care but not everyone agrees on the real-world implementation.
Interruptions Lead to Errors and Unfinished…Wait, What Was I Doing?
Interruptions Lead to Errors and Unfinished…Wait, What Was I Doing?
If you’re a health professional, it’s hard to get through a single hour of the day without being distracted or interrupted, even when performing critical tasks. For instance, nurses administering medications and pharmacists and technicians dispensing medications are distracted and interrupted as often as once every 2 minutes (Relihan et al., 2010; Silver, 2010)!
Electronic Physician Documentation: Not Just Another IT Project
Electronic Physician Documentation
Not Just Another IT Project
As hospitals throughout the country sprint towards Meaningful Use, computerized physician order entry (CPOE), electronic medication reconciliation, ICD-9-generated diagnosis tables, nursing documentation, and bedside barcoding seem to be riding a tsunami incentivized by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA).
Editor’s Notebook: Nurses and Social Media
Editor’s Notebook
Nurses and Social Media
Working on an article for this issue (pg. 32), I conducted a brief survey of 12 nurse executives, which included a question about social media. Their responses confirmed my sense that most healthcare professionals are interested but tentative in their use of social media.