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The Joint Commission's longstanding patient safety goal on infection prevention underscores the critical importance of improving hand hygiene compliance by health care providers. Moreover, again in 2010, the Joint Commission urges infection preventionists and their colleagues to foster "a culture of hand hygiene" by monitoring compliance and providing feedback.
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Demonstrating that you're prepared is important when Joint Commission surveyors knock on your door, says Susan Bukunt, RN, MPA, CPHQ, senior director of clinical quality and patient safety at El Camino Hospital with two campuses in Los Gatos and Mountain View, CA. "Being able to give them what they're asking for shows them that you're ready and you take this seriously," she says.
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Superficial venous thrombosis is not a benign condition and deserves close attention.
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Although age is a risk factor for morbidity and mortality with cardiac surgery, chronologic age does not always reflect biological age. Although frailty has been shown to predict falls, hospitalization, institutionalization, and mortality in geriatric populations in the community, it has not been systematically studied in patients undergoing surgery.
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This two-phase, prospective, multicenter study demonstrated that implementation of an intubation management protocol reduced the incidence of severe hypoxemia and cardiovascular collapse during endotracheal intubation when compared to standard practice, but did not improve other patient outcomes such as ICU mortality or duration of mechanical ventilation.
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In a prospective, observational study, > 50% of patients identified and treated for severe sepsis in the emergency department (ED) had negative cultures; 18% of patients had a noninfectious diagnosis that mimicked sepsis.
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The risk of relapse after effective therapy with plasma exchange for thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura (TTP) has not been well-characterized. Among 376 patients with an initial episode of TTP treated with plasma exchange, overall survival was around 68%, with a survival of 78% among the subset with idiopathic TTP. Survival did not differ on those having a low (< 10%) ADAMTS13 level. Relapse was greater for those with a low ADAMTS13 level at the time of presentation.
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In this large retrospective cohort study of more than 100,000 patients in 112 hospitals, after correction for illness severity and other factors, daily rounds by a multidisciplinary care team were associated with lower mortality in the ICU, regardless of whether an intensivist model of physician staffing was in use.
