Use screening protocols to ensure civil unrest stays out of your hospital

When civil unrest outside your doors threatens to come inside, be sure staff are trained on...

AAAHC issues COVID-19 risk prevention guidelines

Following guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Accreditation...

How patient matching can help eliminate COVID-19 disparities in care

Missing contact information on COVID-19 laboratory results prevents individuals with positive test...

The roar of the ’20s continues: Optimism abounds!

Mac's Safety Space: I trust that you all were able to carve out some downtime over the holidays.

How healthcare workers can prepare for the unexpected

When 9/11 took place, NYC healthcare facilities were thrown into chaos trying to establish communication and coordination during the biggest terrorist attack in U.S. history.

Many thought their clinics and hospitals were prepared for whatever natural disasters are native to their area—until record-breaking storms, fires, or tornados left them isolated, their facility cut off from supplies and aid for days on end.

And while many warned that a global pandemic was possible, there wasn’t a single clinic, hospital, or healthcare organization that wasn’t blindsided by COVID-19.

Train staff on dangers of dry ice, other precautions handling vaccines

Now that more COVID-19 vaccines finally are being approved and the U.S. is ramping up immunization programs, educate or retrain workers on handling dry ice and ensure all areas with ultra-cold storage have good ventilation.

Dry ice can cause severe injury and even death if not handled correctly, warned Ramya Krishnan, senior project engineer of device evaluations for ECRI, during the patient safety organization’s online Q&A session in mid-December.

Also ensure anyone who handles the containers in which the vials are specially packaged knows that the vaccine is sensitive to being shaken too hard.

Study: Patient photos in electronic records reduce medical errors

It’s never been easier to take and send photos these days. Healthcare providers can use that fact to prevent patient harm. A new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) has proven for the first time that wrong-patient errors decrease when the electronic health record (EHR) includes a patient photo.

Researchers found that the risk of wrong-patient order events (WPOE) decreased by about 30% when a photo was included in the medical record (odds ratio 0.72; 95% confidence interval 0.57–0.89).

“In this historical cohort study, displaying patient photographs in the banner of the EHR was associated with a statistically significant reduction of WPOE errors in the ED,” the authors wrote. “The effect size associated with this strategy was larger than in previously published interventions aimed at reducing WPOE errors, and this strategy has the advantage of being noninterruptive in nature.”

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Building a High-Reliability Organization: A Toolkit for Success, Second Edition is centered around improving hospital processes for patient safety and quality care through high-reliability practices. Authors Gary L. Sculli, MSN, ATP, Douglas E. Paull, MD, FACS, FCCP, CHSE, and David Sine, CSP, ARM, CPHRM, DrBE, look at the role leadership played in transforming their facilities into high-reliability organizations (HRO). By implementing top-down processes that translate throughout the organization, leaders can create environments that foster high reliability, patient safety, and care.

Order your copy today!

Brian Ward
Editor
bward@hcpro.com


HCPro
35 Village Road, Suite 200
Middleton, MA 01949
800-650-6787
http://www.hcpro.com

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