Supporting Safer Healthcare

All it takes is one fraudulent or unqualified practitioner on your staff to bring enormous harm to both patients and your organization’s hard-earned reputation. And sometimes, all it takes to keep them off your staff is one dedicated, qualified medical staff services professional. November 6-12 is National Medical Staff Services Awareness Week.  If you work [...]

Findings of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Advisory Committee on Blood Safety and Availability, June 8, 2011: Blood transfusion carries significant risk that may outweigh its benefits in some settings and add unnecessary costs. Wide variability in use of transfusions indicates that there is both excessive and inappropriate use of blood transfusions [...]

I recently returned from the annual meeting of the Society for the Advancement of Blood Management (SABM). The focus of the program was education and support for individuals involved in improving patient care and safety while curtailing healthcare costs through effective blood conservation and management. We in Pittsburgh, PA were quite pleased to hear that [...]

Here is the list of 405 hospitals that the Joint Commission honored as 2010 top performers in the following categories: Heart Attack Heart Failure Pneumonia Surgical Children’s Asthma You may be suprised to see who made the list, and who didn’t.  

Lisa Venn, J.D., M.A. For the first time in the history of health care, patients’ experience, namely what they think about the health care they receive, will affect providers’ bottom line. First, patient experience survey results will affect a provider’s reimbursement rate. Second, patients’ opinions about their health care have the power to influence patients’ [...]

Matthew Scheidt, Jr., 17, of Osceola, Fla., is facing felony charges.  He was arrested September 2nd, accused of impersonating a physician’s assistant for five days at a central Florida hospital. It all started on Aug. 24, when Scheidt allegedly went to the human resources office at the Osceola Regional Medical Center and requested a new hospital badge, [...]

The frail, elderly patient was so pale as to be nearly invisible against the crisp white sheets.  Any ability to give voice to his thoughts had been taken away by the ventilator tubes in his throat.  The soft restraints on his wrists prevented him from dislodging those tubes, either in confusion or by design.  Other tubes silently pumped fluids in or drained them out.  During [...]

WHO Director-General Margaret Chan has named Professor Sir Liam Donaldson as WHO Envoy for Patient Safety. In this role, Sir Liam, who served as England’s Chief Medical Officer between 1998 and 2010, will help the Organization promote patient safety as a global public health priority.    

The Implementation Guide for The Joint Commission Patient Blood Management Performance Measures 2011 is now available.   Detailed specifications are provided for seven measures related to transfusions and select elective surgery patients.   The 2011 JC Patient Blood Management Implementation Guide

Hospitalized patients diagnosed with Clostridium Difficile (C Diff), Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), or other infectious diseases are usually placed in contact isolation.  The upside to that is a private room, the downside is that for long hospital stays the patient experience can feel like solitary confinement.   Hospital employees must don gowns and gloves before entering the [...]