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With widespread adoption of safer sharps in hospitals, needlesticks declined by more than half for some of the most hazardous devices. Safety has become the norm in phlebotomy. Needle devices are placed in sharps containers instead of being left on bed linens or carts, where someone else may be stuck.
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Medical residents aren't the only hospital employees suffering from fatigue.
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During last year's H1N1 influenza pandemic, health care workers inadvertently transmitted flu to their co-workers, in some cases triggering a hospital-based outbreak. That and other information about H1N1 transmission helped shape new guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that rely on vaccination, respiratory hygiene, and monitoring of ill employees by employee health professionals.
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Karen Daley, PhD, MPH, RN, FAAN, remembers the stick as if it happened in slow-motion, the details still clear to her 12 years later. She had helped a co-worker draw blood from a patient in the emergency department. She turned to reach behind her for the sharps container. Mounted high on the wall, it was overfilled, but she couldn't see it well because it was above eye level.
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A bill recently signed into law in New York state will require a patient's health care provider to provide information and counseling to that patient on palliative care, prognosis, and end-of-life options, once the patient is diagnosed with a terminal illness.
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Cancer patients who die in the hospital or an intensive care unit (ICU) have worse quality of life at the end-of-life, compared to patients who die at home with hospice services, and their caregivers are at higher risk for developing psychiatric illnesses during bereavement, according to a study by researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.
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In addressing spiritual care for their patients at the end of life, physicians often face the challenge of how to mesh the spiritual concerns with objective science, which is a challenge that sometimes results in a "significant disconnect" with patients, said Rabbi Barry M. Kinzbrunner, MD.
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Twenty-one months after quality assessment and performance improvement (QAPI) requirements became part of the Hospice Conditions of Participation, quality improvement managers are reporting that the transition has gone smoothly when electronic medical records (EMRs) and staff education are integrated.
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Working outside the box to provide services that don't always fit the definition of home health or hospice is a trademark of Kansas City Hospice and Palliative Care in Kansas City, MO. The hospice's innovative approach to meeting community needs is one of the reasons it was one of three program honored with a 2010 American Hospital Association Circle of Life Award.
