Failure Recovery Tool Offers Guidance Amid the ‘Chaos and Shock’ of Medical Errors
This article appears in the March issue of Patient Safety Monitor. Hospitals need to have a structure in place to respond to patient safety failures Healthcare can be a stressful industry to work in, particularly when something goes wrong. Instead of relying on humans to react under pressure, one organization is offering a structured … Continued
Letter to the Editor: Did the FDA Say Duodenoscopes Were Safe? Part 2
A post on February 24, 2016 by PSQH was headlined “FDA: Duodenoscopes from three major companies now safe to use with updated instructions.” The article went on to say that “The announcement means that scopes from the three major manufactures…are now safe to use with their updated instructions.” However a proper reading of the FDA … Continued
Patient Safety Awareness Week is Underway
Patient Safety Awareness Week (March 13-19) presented by the National Patient Safety Foundation’s (NPSF) United for Patient Safety Campaign is underway. Healthcare facilities and leading patient safety organizations across the country are expected to participate in patient safety week. The United for Patient Safety Campaign, announced by the NPSF last month, encourages dialogue … Continued
Joint Commission Releases 2015 Sentinel Event Stats
Last week, The Joint Commission released its sentinel event statistics from 2015. Of the 936 sentinel events reported last year, the most common were unintended retention of a foreign body (116), wrong-site/wrong-side/wrong procedure surgery (111), falls (95), and suicides (95). The most common root causes of sentinel events last year were human factors (e.g., staff … Continued
Alarm Management Compliance Shifts into Second Gear
In the second phase of The Joint Commission’s alarm management NPSG, hospitals aim to put policy into practice For the last two years, healthcare organizations have been working to comply with the first phase of The Joint Commission’s alarm management National Patient Safety Goal (NPSG). As of January 1, 2016, they’ll have to contend with … Continued
Patient Testimonials Lead to HIPAA Breach
Complete P.T., Pool & Land Physical Therapy, Inc. (CPT), a California-based physical therapy practice, agreed to a corrective action plan and a $25,000 resolution amount to settle allegations that it disclosed protected health information (PHI) as part of a video testimonial campaign, HHS says. The settlement is the result of a complaint lodged with Office … Continued
New Sentinel Event Alert Focuses on Preventing Patient Suicide
The Joint Commission released a new Sentinel Event Alert last week, aimed at helping healthcare providers to better identify and treat patients at risk for suicide. Over 1,000 patient suicides were recorded in The Joint Commission Sentinel Event Database between 2010 and 2014. According to SEA 56, the most common cause to the patient suicides … Continued
Hospitals are beginning to rethink opioid prescribing practices
For the last several years, there has been a startling mortality trend emerging in the United States: Each year, middle-aged white Americans are dying at a faster clip than any of their counterparts in different age groups, ethnicities, or countries. It’s a trend that was startling, in part, because researchers couldn’t explain why it was … Continued
Bribery on Two Continents: Olympus Corp. to Pay $646 million settlement
On March 1, the Department of Justice (DOJ) charged Olympus Corp. with paying millions of dollars in kickbacks to hospitals and doctors to buy its products. The company, which owns 85% of the U.S. endoscope market, has agreed to pay $646 million to resolve the criminal charges and civil charges brought against it. The sum … Continued
Medical Device Vulnerabilities High on CIO’s List of Worries
By Scott Mace, HealthLeaders Media This article originally appeared in HealthLeaders Media. As HIMSS gets underway, the healthcare IT world is still shaking from last month’s audacious privacy breach at a California hospital. Hollywood Presbyterian Hospital paid a $17,000 ransom to a criminal enterprise that broke into the hospital’s system, encrypted data, and demanded an … Continued