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The World Health Organization has published the "Multi-professional Patient Safety Curriculum Guide" to help educators around the world train health professionals to bring about improvements in patient safety.
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While a two-hour orientation on patient education provides a good introduction to resources and teaching methods at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, it is difficult to provide all the details in such a short time period, says Brian M. French, RN, BC, manager of The Maxwell & Eleanor Blum Patient and Family Learning Center and The Knight Simulation Program at the hospital.
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A series of patient testimonies videoed for a new initiative launched by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) in Rockville, MD, this fall shows the benefit of two-way communication between clinicians and patients.
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A pilot program in which parents or caregivers of patients were screened for health literacy reduced healthcare costs and emergency department use for patients at Cook Children's Medical Center in Fort Worth, TX.
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The Sept. 28 issue of the "Health Care Innovations Exchange," available from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) at http://www.innovations.ahrq.gov/issue.aspx?id=113, includes the following.
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This month we are adding new features to Patient Education Management (PEM). We want to recognize healthcare professionals who go "above and beyond" to dramatically improve patient education through unique and create approaches. From time to time, we will formally recognize their excellence by bestowing a "Gold Star Award," which will be indicated at the top of their story.
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An education program to convert active cancer patients to cancer survivors called "Road to Wellness" has lofty goals, according to its author, Matthew Ballo, MD, professor of radiation oncology at M.D. Anderson Regional Care Center in the Bay Area, Nassau Bay, TX.
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The Office of Communications at the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research has launched a pilot program to provide Spanish language versions of the agency's Drug Safety Communications (DSCs). The Spanish versions are available at http://www.fda.gov/Drugs/DrugSafety/ucm263010.htm.
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Knowing how to develop an individualized teaching plan for patients is a skill each newly hired nurse must know at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. Therefore, a two-hour orientation gets them up to speed on how to access online resources to support the plan and document the teaching outcomes.
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A year after Saint Joseph-London Hospital in London, KY, began a heart failure readmissions program, 30-day readmissions dropped from 27.7% to 15.9%. A similar program for patients admitted for acute myocardial infarctions (AMI) reduced the readmissions rate from 23% to 10% in a short time.
