Be Prepared: Anticipating Pediatric Emergencies in Ambulatory Surgery

Be Prepared: Anticipating Pediatric Emergencies in Ambulatory Surgery

 

Hunterdon Center for Surgery (a partner of Hunterdon Healthcare) provides patients with a convenient location for same-day surgical procedures. The facility mirrors the look and comfort of a typical doctor’s office, yet its four operating rooms house the same sophisticated medical equipment found at Hunterdon Medical Center

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Patient Engagement in Patient Safety: Barriers and Facilitators

Patient Engagement in Patient Safety: Barriers and Facilitators

 

Patient safety has been at the forefront of recent domestic and international policy initiatives. The release of the Institute of Medicine’s (IOM) 2000 report To Err Is Human solidified the patient safety movement and the role that leadership and knowledge can play in preventing adverse events from occurring.

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Florida Collaborative Tackles Hospital Readmissions

Florida Collaborative Tackles Hospital Readmissions

 

Whether you look at the national health reform debate taking place in Washington or the payment reform initiatives by commercial health plans, one common element and call to action is reducing hospital readmissions.

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Disclosure and Apology: What’s Missing?

Disclosure and Apology: What’s Missing?

 

Ten years following Linda Kenney’s medically induced trauma, the organization she founded to “support healing and restore hope” for patients, families, and clinicians following adverse events co-sponsored an invitational forum about ways to offer emotional support to clinicians. Collaborating with the Massachusetts Medical Society, CRICO/RMF, and ProMutual Group, Kenney’s organization, Medically Induced Trauma Support Services, hosted the event at the MMS offices in Waltham, Mass., on March 13, 2009, during Patient Safety Awareness Week.

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Distractions and Interruptions: Impact on Nursing

Distractions and Interruptions: Impact on Nursing

Working at the point of care, nurses play a key role in the delivery of safe, quality healthcare. Acute care nurses have to make timely and relevant clinical decisions, yet work within environmental conditions that are conducive to error.  A recent study showed that nurses on average were interrupted 3 to 6 times every hour by people, pagers, telephone, etc (Potter et al., 2005). The potential impact of interruptions and distractions includes medical and medication errors, ineffective delivery of care, conflict and stress among health professionals, latent failures, and poor outcomes.

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AHRQ: Preventing Healthcare-Associated Infections

AHRQ
Initiating Promising Solutions and Expanding Proven Ones

Healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) are on everyone’s hit list, as they should be, because no patient should get sicker from a preventable infection they pick up in a hospital or other healthcare facility.

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Workplace Safety: Hospital Security Impacts Patient Satisfaction

Workplace Safety

Hospital Security Impacts Patient Satisfaction

Security concerns for healthcare institutions are unlike those of any other market segment. Hospitals face increasing challenges to maintaining peace and security as emergency rooms are overcrowded, language barriers create tensions, and domestic violence is on the rise.

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Trends: Sentara Supports Its Commitment to High Quality Care and Patient Safety with Biomedical Device Integration

Trends

Sentara Supports Its Commitment to High Quality Care and Patient Safety with Biomedical Device Integration

Sentara is a national leader in patient safety and quality care innovation, operating in over 100 care sites in Virginia and North Carolina. Sentara is one of the most progressive and integrated healthcare organizations in the nation with a culture of safety focused on error and injury reduction through simplified rules of behavior for everyone working in the environment of care.

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Pulse: Diverse Opinion Leaders Say Nurses Should Have More Influence on Health Systems

Pulse

Diverse Opinion Leaders Say Nurses Should Have More Influence on Health Systems and Services
Opinion leaders trust nurses, but cite barriers to nursing leadership.

From reducing medical errors, to increasing the quality of care, to promoting wellness, to improving efficiency and reducing costs, a new survey finds that an overwhelming majority of opinion leaders say nurses should have more influence. But these opinion leaders—including insurance, corporate, health services, government and industry thought leaders as well as university faculty—see significant barriers that prevent nurses from fully participating as leaders in health and healthcare.

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Pulse: Lucian Leape Institute Finds Medical Schools Fall Short in Teaching How to Provide Safe Care

Pulse

Lucian Leape Institute Finds Medical Schools Fall Short in Teaching How to Provide Safe Care

The Lucian Leape Institute at the National Patient Safety Foundation has released a report that finds that U.S. “medical schools are not doing an adequate job of facilitating student understanding of basic knowledge and the development of skills required for the provision of safe patient care.” The report comes approximately 10 years after the Institute of Medicine’s landmark 1999 report, To Err Is Human, which found that 98,000 Americans die unnecessarily from preventable medical errors.

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