Patient safety staff members at VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System (VAPHS) knew they had a chance to increase their incident reporting, so they did something about it. And what they did didn’t require them to train hundreds of staff members in the large academic teaching hospital, but it still...
Do you or your leadership team know how many quality improvement (QI) and performance improvement (PI) teams your organization currently has? Does your frontline staff know the organization’s strategic plan and vision? Do your middle managers have leadership training? Do all your PI teams report...
Many of those who work in hospitals know there is always potential for staff to make mistakes, and that those mistakes might cause patient harm. Hospitals are constantly working toward better patient care, putting systems in place to ensure that clinicians double- and triple-check their work,...
Editor’s note: The following column explores patient safety from the perspective of a newcomer to the patient safety field. Columnist Catherine Hinz, MHA, currently works at PatientSafe Solutions, Inc. Previously, she served as the patient lead at HealthEast Care System...
Preventing medical errors and patient harm is a top priority for most hospitals. Physicians, nurses, and other clinicians do not enter their professions to produce poor outcomes.
Most clinicians understand the dangers multidrug-resistant organisms (MDRO) present to patients. Most also understand that these germs are easily spread through hands and other surfaces, and that hand washing is a proven method for preventing MDROs from spreading. Yet—as many patient safety...
In patient safety and quality, there is no shortage of data and information that needs to be gathered from an inpatient stay. Data are collected for compliance with federal quality-of-care measures, federal and state patient safety indicator and event tracking, accreditation, professional...
