Healthcare Risk Management – August 1, 2006
August 1, 2006
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Special Report: Infant Abductions: Infant abduction yields lessons and warnings for risk managers
A Texas hospital was recently involved in an infant abduction case that shows some strengths of the typical measures employed on many newborn units, but it also demonstrates the weaknesses that can make babies vulnerable if staff are not vigilant. -
Special Report: Infant Abductions: Scrubs are difficult issue for newborn unit security
Many hospitals have their newborn unit staff wear a distinctive scrubs color or other uniform so that it is easier to recognize that they are authorized to handle the infants, ... -
Special Report: Infant Abductions: Liability risk even though baby abducted at home
The infant abduction in Lubbock, TX, didn't happen until the baby had been discharged and was at home with her mother, so what's the potential liability for the hospital? -
Special Report: Infant Abductions: Rider can help cover costs of infant abduction
A special rider available on some insurance coverage could help cover the costs associated with an infant abduction at your facility. -
Engineers study design, hospital cuts falls 50%
Outside engineers can give risk managers a fresh perspective on design and procedures that affect the likelihood of patients falling, according to a team that was able to reduce falls in one hospital by more than 50% in fewer than two years. -
Data help show fall risk with design, assessments
When Our Lady of Lourdes in Pasco, WA, brought in outside engineers to give them a fresh perspective on reducing falls, the team came up with several solutions. -
Critical birth drills help prepare staff
You probably conduct fire drills, evacuation drills, infant abduction drills, and mass casualty drills, but there is one more you might want to add to the schedule: critical birth drills. -
How to conduct critical birth drills
The following advice for conducting critical birth drills comes from Stanley Davis, MD, an OB-GYN specialist at Fairview Health Services in Minneapolis. -
Effort to cut errors works better than expected
The Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) in Cambridge, MA, announced recently that U.S. hospitals taking part in an 18-month effort to prevent 100,000 unnecessary deaths by dramatically improving patient care have exceeded that goal. -
JCAHO releases new goals, requires flu vaccine
The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) has announced the 2007 National Patient Safety Goals. -
Americans favor liability reform legislation
More than three-fifths of Americans surveyed by the Health Coalition on Liability and Access (HCLA) support passage of comprehensive medical liability reform legislation. -
Legal Review and Commentary: $826,000 verdict after tuberculosis remains undiagnosed and untreated for more than 6 months
News: An elderly man suffering from a bloody cough did not receive a bronchoscopy to examine his lower airways until six months after initially visiting his primary care physician. -
Legal Review and Commentary: Overdose of aminophylline leads to $456,600 verdict
News: Upon the premature birth of a baby, a doctor recommended a dose of aminophylline to treat the brief pauses in the infant's breathing.