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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
Documentation: The Clinical Integration Specialist
Documentation
The Clinical Integration Specialist: Improving Patient Care in the Energency Department
In an article posted to the Patient Safety & Quality Healthcare blog (Weygandt, 2009), we addressed a critical function for patient safety and quality: accurately communicating clinical information in real time by incorporating the clinical documentation specialist (CDS) as a key member of the clinical team.
Editor’s Notebook: Scale
Editor’s Notebook
Scale
My email and Twitter accounts are full of news about Patient Safety Awareness Week (PSAW; March 7–13), which has been sponsored by the National Patient Safety Foundation (NPSF) since 2002. In an interview with Heather Comak of HealthLeaders Media, NPSF President Diane Pinakiewicz explains that the purpose of PSAW is “…to provide a week not just for heightened awareness about patient safety, but very specifically a focus on the role of the patient and consumer in the work.”
EMR Implementation: Building a Team of Informaticists
EMR Implementation
Building a Team of Informaticists
In “Clinical Informatics and the CMIO” (PSQH 2010, Jan./Feb.), I discussed the importance of clinical informatics in institutions achieving their EMR implementation goals. I talked about why you can’t “just take the paper order set and make it appear on the screen” and how you should brace yourself for organizational change when you start doing electronic order entry.
Human Factors 101: Improve Reliability in Healthcare with Human Factors Engineering
Human Factors 101
Improve Reliability in Healthcare with Human Factors Engineering
Healthcare technology and training have advanced remarkably in the past 100 years, from the discovery of penicillin to the first heart transplant, but there is a downside to this progress. To quote Sir Cyril Chantler, former Dean of the Guy’s, King’s and St. Thomas’ Medical and Dental Schools in London, “Medicine used to be simple, ineffective, and relatively safe. Now it is complex, effective and potentially dangerous.”