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This month's SDS Accreditation Update includes a focus on the perennial and potentially disastrous problem of patient identification errors.
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Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles will have to pay almost $4.7 million to a surgeon who claims the hospital retaliated against him for blowing the whistle on unsafe practices in his department, unless the hospital manages to have the award overturned.
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After a talk I gave last month, someone came up to me after the meeting and asked me this question, "After all the years you have been doing this [surgical consulting], what are some of the things you have learned?"
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Have your staff members' shellac nails raised questions about whether they are artificial and an infection control threat?
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The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), which is the single largest payer for healthcare in the United States, is creating a hospital inspection program focused specifically on infection control.
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A Texas hospital, its parent company, two surgical nurses, a nurse anesthetist, and a surgical tech are facing a lawsuit charging them with assault and intentional infliction of emotional distress after what the plaintiff says was a prank played on him while he was anesthetized for surgery. An appeals court recently ruled that the defendants should stand trial.
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Managers at surgery centers have learned that, similar to a Code Blue, you must react quickly when you have a water leak to prevention serious damage, including mold.
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In this study of a large administrative database, the incidence of selected complications in patients diagnosed with sleep apnea (SA) was compared to that in patients undergoing similar surgical procedures who were not diagnosed with SA.
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Educators often talk about "teachable moments," those times when the patient is ready to learn. This moment might be in a waiting area, exam room, or a hospital bed. To take advantage of these times, staff members in the Section of Patient Education at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN, look for new ways to deliver patient education.
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Disclosing a medical error is never easy, but it can become especially complicated when you need to tell the patient that a previous provider was in the wrong. This delicate situation often requires communication with the other provider before you tell the patient anything.
