Supporting Safer Healthcare

Aging physicians on your medical staff are a cause for concern.  Not just concerns regarding their ability to continue to safely care for patients, but concerns for them as valued friends and colleagues, for their dignity and self-esteem. Medical staff leaders struggle with what, if anything, to do when faced with this dilemma.  Should the clinical privileges [...]

Lisa Venn, JD, MA, author of “Improving Patient Experience:  50 Things Every Advocate Must Know,” a nationally recognized speaker and owner of Advocate Alliance, was interviewed on the popular “Coping with Caregiving” Internet radio program on Saturday, October 15th.  Listen online to the recorded program.   Lisa shared tips on protecting patient rights and resolving patient concerns. Based on [...]

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, [...]

Kevin Pho, M.D. asks, ‘Should nurses be fired for fatal medication errors?’ Some may think the answer is a no-brainer, but as Kevin points out, there are often bigger issues at stake.

March 6-12, 2011 has been designated by the National Patient Safety Foundation as Patient Safety Awareness Week. In honor of those who work in Patient Safety, a challenging and at times heart-wrenching career choice, here is a list, courtesy of the Pennsylvania Patient Safety Authority, of items that have caused potentially serious problems for patients undergoing  MRI [...]

Human hands – a marvel of masterful design. With them we reach, grasp, work, and create. With them we comfort, arouse, touch, and heal. Their tasks can be elegant, complex, or dirty, and in the case of healthcare, are often all three. This is a reminder and a plea to wash your marvelous, elegant, healing [...]

A study suggests medical errors, job burnout and depression lead surgeons to contemplate suicide at higher rates than the general public, and they’re much less likely to seek help. Fear of losing their jobs contributes to surgeons’ reluctance to get mental health treatment, according to the study. Nearly 8,000 surgeons participated. Read the rest Surgery [...]

You just heard at this morning’s CEO leadership meeting that a 40-year-old father of five children died in the Surgical ICU last night, hours after receiving medication intended for another patient. Everyone is upset. Questions are flying around the hospital: What does the family know? Who did it? What happened? What can we say? Would [...]

Joint Commission has announced the appointment of a new Medical Director, an Internist from the University of Pennsylvania Health System, Ana Pujols-McKee, M.D. “In this role, Dr. McKee will represent The Joint Commission enterprise as she focuses on and develops policies and strategies for promoting patient safety and quality improvement in health care. Her specific responsibilities will [...]

Masters in Risk Management states on its web site that it “strives to provide readers with the best information available about risk management degrees,” as well as ”information about career opportunities and more.” The group recently posted their selection of the Top 50 Risk Management Blogs.  Blogs are listed alphabetically in five categories: Business Risk Management Insurance Risk Management [...]