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Once administrators at Broward General Medical Center in Fort Lauderdale, FL, discovered that a nurse had exposed patients to serious infections by reusing disposable tubing and IV bags, the hospital acted quickly to notify those affected and arrange testing.
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With the Obama administration offering up to $19 billion in incentives as part of the federal stimulus package for medical providers to go digital, and the goal for every American to have an electronic health record by 2014, the potential for data breaches dramatically increases.
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Data are everywhere these days, and you can put it to work for you. Health care providers accumulate huge volumes of data, and some risk managers are learning that the strategic use of that information can improve patient safety, reduce costs, and reduce liability risks.
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Free wireless Internet access, known as Wi-Fi, is offered in many retail establishments and public buildings, allowing customers and visitors to access the Internet with their laptop computers and cell phones. But as health care providers venture into offering this convenience, questions arise about network security and possible breaches of sensitive data.
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Risk managers have struggled for years to reconcile the notion of a "no-blame" culture with incidents in which - systemic problems or not - one individual clearly committed a willful violation of procedure. Embracing the philosophy is easier when the evidence suggests the health care worker made a mistake, even a failure of attention or diligence, but willful and even malicious misbehavior seems to pose a dilemma.
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It has been 10 years since the Institute of Medicine's report To Err is Human revolutionized patient safety by encouraging a focus on systemic flaws that allow errors to occur, rather than blaming the individual who actually made the mistake. From the start, however, risk managers have struggled with the idea of how to avoid a "culture of blame" without letting people get away with extraordinary negligence or deliberate misbehavior.
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A woman underwent a hysterectomy. During the procedure, an endotracheal tube was inserted, which resulted in a perforation of the woman's esophagus.
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A woman presented at her gynecologist's office with complaints of post-menopausal bleeding. The gynecologist ordered a pelvic ultrasound, which displayed abnormal findings.
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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta reports that data from 60 U.S. hospitals show health care workers suffer about 384,325 sharps and percutaneous injuries annually. These findings were presented recently at the International Conference on Nosocomial and Healthcare-Associated Infections in Atlanta.
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A woman presented at the emergency department (ED) complaining of dehydration. She was noticeably confused and had difficulty keeping her balance. The staff determined that she suffered from chronic low sodium. A physician ordered the woman be administered 125 cc sodium every hour. A nurse administered a liter of sodium in less than an hour, causing the woman's serum sodium to increase by 23 mEqs.
