Common Vaccine Error Leaves Patients Unprotected

The Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP) has received frequent reports of errors involving vaccine administration to a patient where only one of two necessary vaccine components supplied is administered. These errors leave patients unprotected against serious and sometimes fatal communicable diseases.

In a new report, the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), recommends implementing a “systems engineering” approach to achieve lower cost and higher quality in healthcare.

There is a growing trend across the U.S. for hospitals to seek ISO: 9001-2008 certification as a key component in their continuing commitment to be a highly reliable organization.

Truven Health Analytics, a provider of healthcare analytics and data solutions and services, has acquired Simpler Consulting®, the global leader in providing Lean enterprise transformation services. The strategic acquisition combines Truven’s market-leading cost and quality analytics with Simpler’s performance management consulting capabilities to deliver impactful and tangible performance improvement solutions to healthcare, government, and commercial customers.

MEPS Real-Time Inc., a provider of RFID solutions for pharmacy automation and inventory management, has introduced the industry’s smallest RFID smart tag that significantly improves the automated replenishment of kits, trays, and tackle boxes in the hospital pharmacy.

The Department of Health and Human Services announced that new preliminary data show an overall nine percent decrease in hospital acquired conditions nationally during 2011 and 2012. National reductions in adverse drug events, falls, infections, and other forms of hospital-induced harm are estimated to have prevented nearly 15,000 deaths in hospitals, avoided 560,000 patient injuries, and approximately $4 billion in health spending over the same period.

The Center for Patient Safety (CPS) has landed its first national contract from Air Evac Lifeteam, a subsidiary of Air Medical Group Holdings, announced Becky Miller, executive director, CPS. Air Evac Lifeteam, an air ambulance company, currently has 115 bases in 15 states. The three-year participation agreement was executed on April 1, 2014.

Improving healthcare can start by curing hospitals themselves: The construction of the new Mercy Hospital Joplin comes amid a revolution in thinking about how buildings themselves can improve medicine.

Patient safety is a top priority for every healthcare organization, but knowing where to direct initiatives can be daunting. To help organizations decide where to focus their efforts, ECRI Institute has compiled its first annual list of the Top 10 Patient Safety Concerns for Healthcare Organizations.

Nuance PowerShare^TM Network, the industry’s largest cloud-based network for securely connecting physicians, patients, government agencies, specialty medical societies, and others to share essential medical images and reports is now available from Nuance Communications, Inc.

Failure to perform proper hand hygiene is one of the leading preventable causes of healthcare-associated infections. iScrub is an iPhone/iPod Touch application from The Computational Epidemiology Group at the University of Iowa.

The Awarepoint Humidity Tag monitors ambient room moisture in critical areas, eliminating manual logging, immediately notifying personnel of irregularities, and increasing compliance with issue resolution documentation.

When it comes to the cost and quality of hospital care, nurse tenure and teamwork matters. Patients get the best care when they are treated in units that are staffed by nurses who have extensive experience in their current job, according to a study from researchers at Columbia University School of Nursing and Columbia Business School.

The Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA) has announced Jason Lempp, MPH, CIC, as the winner of the third annual EPI Project Competition. Lempp was honored with the early investigator award for his project looking to determine if the Washington State Validation Protocol for central line-associated bloodstream infections (CLABSIs) can be a scalable, sustainable model for tracking and ensuring quality national data on healthcare-associated infections (HAIs).

Management-By-Walking-Around, a widely adopted technique in hospitals in which senior managers visit the frontlines of their organizations to solicit improvement ideas and resolve issues, has the potential to do more harm than good, according to a new study by researchers from Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and Harvard Business School (HBS).