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A growing number of organizations are disclosing errors to patients, but this can be disastrous if handled poorly.
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Researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) in Boston have shown that using bar-code technology to augment the counting of surgical sponges during an operative procedure increases the detection rate of miscounted and/or misplaced sponges. Their research is published in the April 2008 issue of the Annals of Surgery.
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Health care-associated infections due to multiple drug-resistant organisms, central line-associated bloodstream infections, and surgical site infections. The Joint Commission's new National Patient Safety Goals (NPSGs) for 2009 require you to implement evidence-based practices to prevent all three of these.
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In an effort to clarify the requirements of its Universal Protocol, The Joint Commission has made several revisions and additions, effective Jan. 1, 2009.
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If a patient noticed a health care provider didn't wash his hands, or suspected she was being given an incorrect dosage of medication, would she hesitate to speak up about her concern?
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Medication errors harm roughly one out of 15 hospitalized children, according to a new study. Researchers reported an 11.1% rate of adverse drug events in pediatric patients. Of those, 22% were deemed preventable, 17.8% could have been identified earlier, and 16.8% could have been mitigated more effectively.
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The professionals in the addiction treatment services team at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center in Baltimore have created an approach for treating methadone patients, called the motivated stepped care (MSC) model, which has decreased positive urine tests from 74% to 54% and increased group counseling attendance from 14% to 65%.
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With ever-growing data collection requirements from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, The Joint Commission, health plans, and state hospital associations, how can quality professionals keep up without adding an army of data abstractors?
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The quality of nursing care will have a much bigger impact on reimbursement than ever before, as a result of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services' (CMS) "no pay" conditions, according to a recent analysis.
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Your hospital is likely in the process of implementing a rapid response team (RRT), if one is not already in place but the team is probably focused on adult care. Now a small but growing number of hospitals are implementing pediatric RRTs to improve the care of children.
