MRI Safety 10 Years Later
MRI Safety 10 Years Later
In the summer of 2001, the radiology world was shocked to learn of an accident at Westchester Medical Center in New York state in which 6-year-old Michael Colombini was killed while being prepared for an MRI exam. Sedated and positioned in the scanner, the child’s oxygen saturation levels began dropping quickly.
Cook County Health & Hospitals System Joins GE Patient Safety Organization
Barrington, Illinois, October 11, 2011—GE Healthcare Performance Solutions, a unit of GE Healthcare (NYSE: GE), announced that Cook County Health & Hospitals System (CCHHS) has become the newest member of the GE Patient Safety Organization (GE PSO), in an effort to continue their increased emphasis on a culture of patient safety.
NPSF Announces 2012 Patient Safety Awareness Week Campaign
Oct. 4, 2011—The National Patient Safety Foundation today announced its 2012 Patient Safety Awareness Week campaign, Be Aware for Safe Care. Patient Safety Awareness Week will take place March 4-10, 2012. This year’s theme highlights the need for everyone to understand the importance of patient safety and to recognize the range of efforts being made to improve health safety in the US and worldwide.
Story Power
Editor’s Notebook
Story Power
The patient safety community generally understands the value of stories as a way to honor the experience of people who have been harmed by medical error, to humanize efforts to improve safety, and to inspire the will to change. I had an experience in August that demonstrated just how powerful and disarming these stories can be.
Eliminating CLABSI: Progress on a National Patient Safety Imperative
AHRQ
Eliminating CLABSI: Progress on a National Patient Safety Imperative
At any given time, about 1 in every 20 patients has an infection related to his or her hospital care. These infections cost the U.S. healthcare system billions of dollars each year and lead to the loss of tens of thousands of lives.
Working Together for Patients with Limited Proficiency in English
Medical Interpretation
Working Together for Patients with Limited Proficiency in English
Effective communication between the patient and the medical provider plays a vital role in the delivery of high-quality medical care. But what if that patient is a non-English speaker? Not only do healthcare facilities have a duty to provide language assistance services to limited-English proficient (LEP) patients to ensure quality medical care, but currently there are requirements for equal language access that recipients of federal funding must adhere to.
Daily Check-In for Safety: From Best Practice to Common Practice
Daily Check-In for Safety: From Best Practice to Common Practice
In the nuclear power industry, knowing the status of plant operations and early identification of potential problems is safety critical. At nuclear generating stations across the country, like the Black Fox plant (a pseudonym), each day begins with a plan-of-the-day meeting of plant leaders.
Automated Pre-op Instructions in a Culture of Continuous Improvement
Automated Pre-op Instructions in a Culture of Continuous Improvement
The benefits of providing patients with pre-operative instructions tailored specifically to their unique procedures, health status, and medications are well established. Patient safety perhaps tops this list. Healthcare providers have long recognized that offering clear, easily understandable instructions that cover requirements including fasting, discontinuing anticoagulants or blood pressure regulators, avoiding tobacco and alcohol, and more can enhance patient safety by reducing the chances of potentially life-threatening perioperative complications (Tea, 2010).
The Silent Treatment: Why Safety Tools and Checklists Aren’t Enough
The Silent Treatment: Why Safety Tools and Checklists Aren’t Enough
Poor communication is deadly, especially in critical care settings (Wachter, 2010; The Joint Commission, 2010). When communication breaks down in intensive care units (ICU) and operating rooms, the result is catastrophic harm (Alvarez, 2006; Gandhi, 2005) and even death (Consumers Union, 2009; Institute of Medicine, 2000).
Patient Safety Summit in Emergency Care
Patient Safety Summit in Emergency Care
Emergency care and patient safety thought-leaders from across North America convened in Las Vegas in May 2011 to spend two days together to address the patient safety challenges and opportunities throughout the continuum of emergency care. The event was hosted by the Emergency Medicine Patient Safety Foundation (EMPSF), a national not-for-profit organization based in California whose mission is to improve patient safety in the practice of emergency medicine through education, research, collaboration, and training.