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Many ED Malpractice Claims Are Rooted in Poor Communication
Most ED patients are, at some point, handed off to other providers — admitting physicians, the ICU team, on-call consultants, or primary care physicians. Good communication is crucial in the ED. -
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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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.
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Participant Distress Is Concern for IRBs Reviewing Child Maltreatment Studies
Surveys measuring prevalence of child maltreatment are important knowledge, but IRBs might overestimate the risk to participants.
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Conflict Common Between ICU Clinicians
Ethicists often are seen as a neutral party. Their review of a situation can help provide space to reflect on how the conflict arose.