Prior to 2005, the catheterization lab at Mercy Des Moines (IA)–Mercy Heart Hospital (MDM) had a team responsible for manual inventory of 2,200 medical items per day. This task was not only time-consuming, but it also put patients at high risk of coming in contact with an expired medical item...
I was always certain that my career in patient safety would be in the delivery sector, in health systems, hospitals, or clinics—settings in which clinicians and patients interact. Based on time spent as a frontline staff member and later as a leader in patient safety, I was sure that this was...
A new report released by The Leapfrog Group shows that computer physician order entry (CPOE) systems can potentially miss half of routine medication orders and one-third of potentially fatal medication orders.
The report is based on a study of 214 hospitals that tested their CPOE...
All you need to take advantage of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s (AHRQ) latest tool is hospital administrative or claims data. Called MONAHRQ (My Own Network, Powered by AHRQ), the free tool is a software program built to allow organizations to analyze data and/or create their...
The term “malpractice” often invokes images of courtrooms and spiraling insurance rates, but malpractice data can often be used for the purpose of fostering patient safety. In the surgical world, that information is increasingly more important as the amount and types of surgeries performed climb...
The concept of a just culture is relatively new to the healthcare industry and has become a critical and necessary component of any organization’s approach to improving patient safety. I have quickly learned the importance of just culture as I review patient safety events, attend root cause...
Until 2007, nurses at Riley Hospital for Children in Indianapolis relied on traditional shift change reporting methods to communicate patient care information from caregiver to caregiver. But when challenged by Riley’s leadership team to find ways to improve hospital documentation, the Clinical...
Q. We are in the process of moving to an electronic system. How have other hospitals managed co-signatures on high-risk medications when nurses are scanning meds and patient IDs at the bedside? We would like to make it as easy as possible for the nurses.
If your hospital is lucky enough to be within the borders of the state of Maryland, you can participate in the Maryland Patient Safety Center’s (MPSC) SAFE from FALLS initiative. The project, based on a program by the same name being run through the Minnesota Hospital Association, has been...
