Articles Tagged With:
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Improve Handoffs with Patient Care Partners
Quality patient handoffs are crucial to patient safety. They can be improved by expanding the scope of a handoff to include discharge. Hospitals can proactively ensure every patient is discharged with someone who is prepared to help the patient recover at home, or prepared to find others who can and will. -
Hospitals Underreport to NPDB, Creating Doubt
The Department of Justice recently announced a large healthcare system in the Northwest agreed to pay more than $22 million to settle allegations that two former spine surgeons falsified or exaggerated patient diagnoses and performed unnecessary surgeries. The case is the latest to show how problematic physicians often are not reported to the National Practitioner Data Bank. -
Improve Patient Safety with Employee Rewards, Celebrations
Active engagement with employees can help improve patient safety. Build a culture of safety by showing employees how much their contributions matter. -
Nurse’s Criminal Conviction Could Chill Safety Investigations
A former nurse was recently found guilty of negligent homicide related to a medication error. She admitted to overriding a safeguard before administering the wrong medication to a patient. The case may negatively affect safety investigations.
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Too Many Antibiotics May Affect Vaccine Response Among Infants, Toddlers
Remain cautious about overprescribing antibiotics.
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Power Training Could Benefit Older Patients
Vigorous weight exercises helped those age 60 years and older improve physical function vs. traditional methods.
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Analysis Shows Uneven Distribution of Emergency Physician Residency Programs
Although there are more programs overall today than a decade ago, gaps remain in rural areas.
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Mortality and Days Alive Outside Institutions in Older Patients After Tracheostomy with or Without Gastrostomy Tube
Medicare beneficiaries who underwent tracheostomy and gastrostomy tube placement often remained institutionalized beyond three months, with three-, six-, and 12-month mortality greater than 40%, 50%, and 60%, respectively.
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Occult Hypoxemia Is More Common in Black Patients than in White Patients About to Undergo ECMO for Respiratory Failure
In this retrospective analysis of de-identified Extracorporeal Life Support Organization registry data, the prevalence of occult hypoxemia was higher in Black patients than in white patients. Hispanic and Asian patients had a similar prevalence of occult hypoxemia compared to white patients.
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Surviving Sepsis: The New Guidelines
Subsequent revisions of Surviving Sepsis guidelines highlighted the need for early, appropriate antibiotics along with a new focus on initial resuscitation, stressing the importance of dynamic measurements instead of static variables to predict fluid responsiveness. The most recent 2021 revisions continue to stress the importance of these ideals, but they also place an increased emphasis on the hour-1 bundle and improving the care of sepsis patients after they are discharged from the intensive care unit.