Hospital Management
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Lipedema Affects More Patients than Case Managers Realize
Millions of women live with lipedema, a bilateral loose connective tissue disorder. Too few clinicians diagnose the disease — and too few women know they have it. As case managers work with patients who show signs of lipedema, there could be an opportunity to connect them to their physician for a lipedema evaluation.
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Communication Tools Can Prevent Medication Errors After Discharge
A discharge medication communication bundle can help prevent liquid medication errors when caregivers treat children at home after hospital discharge, new research shows. The communication bundle resulted in fewer caregivers making medication errors when compared with a group receiving standard care.
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Ways to Improve Warm Handoffs and Transitions for Wound Care Patients
Warm handoffs and better patient/caregiver education on wound care can improve healing when patients are discharged. One way is to ask the patient for permission to take photos of the wound to show caregivers and community providers what it looked like at discharge.
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Wound Care Patients Receive Inadequate Care Coordination and Follow-Up
Inadequately preparing patients and caregivers for wound care at home can be costly. Pressure ulcers can cost tens of thousands of dollars a year, per patient. Each patient with this wound needs costly supplies and a special hospital bed. Nurses must turn them every two hours.
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‘Safe Harbors’ Can Address ED Providers’ Malpractice Fears
Many emergency physicians want to follow evidence-based guidelines to reduce unnecessary testing — but worry about liability if they do not order a diagnostic test and a patient sues. The Choosing Wisely campaign, an initiative of the American Board of Internal Medicine Foundation, aims to reduce the overuse of potentially harmful tests and procedures.
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How a ‘Breaking the Rules’ Campaign Engages Staff and Uncovers Outdated Policies
With clinician burnout, a boarding crisis, moral distress, and other concerns making it tough for healthcare leaders to retain staff, it is nice to have an employee-pleasing strategy that can not only make healthcare workers feel as though they have an important voice but also boost operational efficiency. That is the idea behind the “Breaking the Rules for Better Care” initiative spearheaded by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement.
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A Concise Tool to Guide the Care of Patients with Community-Acquired Pneumonia
While patients with community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) commonly present to the ED, obtaining a proper diagnosis and determining the best treatment course is not always clear-cut. For one thing, while there are many evidence-based guidelines for CAP, many of these tools are more than 50 pages long, making it difficult to integrate them into clinical practice.
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Pediatric Boarding Increases Safety Concerns in EDs
Boarding is a common occurrence in most EDs. However, it has been studied more often in adult EDs than pediatric EDs.
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Is Diagnosis Uncertain in the ED? Clear Communication Is Needed
Patients likely expect to leave the emergency department with a definite understanding of what is wrong. Yet many patients are discharged or admitted with an uncertain diagnosis.
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Reduce Patient Safety Risks for ED Super-Utilizers
Extreme ED super-utilizers pose significant risks and challenges for ED providers. Providers are at risk for missing signs of a serious condition because they have seen the patient in the ED so many times for the same complaint — whether back pain, headache, or abdominal pain.