Look at any hospital ranking system and you’ll see the same headlines: “Best hospitals in the U.S.,” or “Top-ranked hospitals in the country.” Although these are attention grabbing for consumers, what metrics really define the word “best”?
First the good news: Patient-controlled analgesia (PCA) pumps equipped with patient monitoring devices have helped avoid adverse events and saved hospitals money. The bad news? Hospitals are generally inconsistent in using those monitoring devices and adhering to PCA safety practices or...
In case hospitals weren’t devoting enough attention to preventing central line–associated bloodstream infections (CLABSI), The Joint Commission has released a new toolkit to equip hospital leaders, managers, and frontline caregivers with easy-to-use tools for safely inserting, maintaining, and...
More than 2,500 general hospitals in the United States received Hospital Safety Scores, and although 32% received an “A,” patient safety experts say those numbers aren’t high enough.
The fall update to the Hospital Safety Scores, which were released by The Leapfrog Group on October 23...
According to a report released by The Joint Commission, 446 sentinel events occurred during the first half of 2013. The report, released by the accreditation agency in October, provides a glimpse at some of the leading issues plaguing hospitals and some insight into what is...
A recent advisory released by the Pennsylvania Patient Safety Advisory (PPSA) in September 2013 focuses on one aspect of EHRs that has been particularly challenging in terms of improving patient safety.
They say that good things come to those who wait, and professionals in just about every sector of healthcare have been patiently waiting-nearly six years, in fact-for the FDA's final ruling on unique device identifiers (UDI) for medical devices, with the expectation that the new system will...
