Feature Channels: Patient Safety

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Residents receiving care in for-profit nursing homes are almost twice as likely to experience health issues caused by substandard care compared with clients living in not-for-profit facilities or in homes in the community, according to a new report in the journal Gerontology.The researchers, led by Lee Friedman, associate professor of environmental and occupational health sciences in the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health, also found that community-dwelling adults 60 years old and older who need assistance with tasks related to daily living but do not live in a nursing home had the fewest number of clinical signs of neglect compared with those living in any type of nursing facility.

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To help patients better understand the complicated dental process known as resorption and the types of treatment options available to them, the American Association of Endodontists is releasing a new educational video titled “Types of Resorption.”

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SAN FRANCISCO – The American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) today announced the recipients of its Perioperative Surgical Home (PSH) Scholarship in which awardees will receive funding to participate in the PSH Learning Collaborative 2020 to support the implementation of a PSH pilot at their institution. The three scholars will be formally awarded, and industry supporters recognized for their support, at a special event on Oct. 15 during the ANESTHESIOLOGY® 2018 annual meeting in San Francisco.

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UW engineers developed a new machine-learning system that can help anesthesiologists predict the likelihood that a patient will experience low blood oxygen levels during surgery. This condition, called hypoxemia, can lead to serious consequences, such as infections and abnormal heart behavior. The team’s system also gives real-world explanations behind its predictions. The researchers estimate that it could improve the ability of anesthesiologists to prevent 2.4 million more hypoxemia cases in the United States every year.

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Allen Kachalia, M.D., J.D., will become the senior vice president of patient safety and quality for Johns Hopkins Medicine and director of the Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality, effective Dec. 1.

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Newly published results of a study examining men with locally or regionally advanced prostate cancer show those treated with a radical prostatectomy followed by radiation treatment have a lower risk of death from prostate cancer and improved overall survival in comparison to those treated with radiation plus androgen deprivation therapy. The work was led by a Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey researcher in collaboration with other regional investigators.

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Enthusiasm for an emerging digital health tool, the smart pill, is on the rise but researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago have published a paper in the American Journal of Bioethics that cautions health care providers and policymakers to slow down when it comes to allowing this technology in patient care settings.

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Study at Johns Hopkins Hospital Leads To Changes in Reporting Patient Safety Concerns 09/20/2018 AddThis Sharing Buttons Share to FacebookShare to TwitterShare to EmailShare to PrintShare to More Credit: iStock In a case study published online last week in Academic Medicine, an international team of researchers led by the University of Cambridge and Johns Hopkins Medicine looked at what prevented employees from raising concerns.

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Women receiving silicone breast implants may be at increased risk of several rare adverse outcomes compared to the general population, reports a study in Annals of Surgery. The journal is published in the Lippincott portfolio by Wolters Kluwer.

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Research by CSUN professor Adam Swenson finds that physicians tend to size up chronic pain patients in unexpected ways.

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The FSMB Foundation – the philanthropic arm of the Federation of State Medical Boards - has widened its grantmaking with a new program that supports the work of diverse research and educational projects through “mini-grants” of up to $5,000 each. The grants are designed to encourage research or educational efforts that increase awareness and understanding of trends and issues impacting medical regulation, as well as patient safety and health care quality overall.

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Hackensack Meridian Health Southern Ocean Medical Center provides the most advanced technology to clean hospital rooms and better protect patients against infections.

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In 2014, Massachusetts lawmakers passed a law requiring a 1:1 or 2:1 patient-to-nurse staffing ratio in intensive care units (ICU) in the state, as guided by a tool that accounts for patient acuity and anticipated care intensity. The regulations were intended to ensure patient safety in the state’s ICUs, but new research led by physician-researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) and published today in Critical Care Medicine found the staffing regulations were not associated with improved patient outcomes.

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Inflammation is the body’s reaction to a harmful stimulus, such as infection with a virus like the flu, an injury like a cut or scrape or chronic conditions such as Crohn’s disease. Although it is a normal and important part of our immune system’s defenses, when it sticks around too long it can be

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A new study from the University at Buffalo has shown that the presence of new or worsened bedsores is an effective indicator of the quality of care for rehab patients. The study is the first to examine whether this metric is, in fact, is associated with outcome of care in inpatient rehabilitation settings.

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A multidisciplinary group of leaders from the Healing After Harm Conference Group, led by Sigall Bell, MD, Researcher at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) and Linda Kenney, Executive Director of Medically Induced Trauma Support Services (MITSS), has established a consensus-driven research agenda with both immediately actionable and longer-term research strategies for health care organizations. The research agenda is designed to create a path forward to inform approaches that better support harmed patients and families.

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A patient blood management program designed to limit the amount of transfused blood orthopedic patients undergoing common surgeries such as hip and knee replacement receive was associated with fewer transfusions, reduced blood use and improved outcomes, reports a study published in the Online First edition of Anesthesiology.

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Today, Mayo Clinic publicly responded to the inaccurate, incomplete and irresponsible reporting by CNN in this week’s “Escape from Mayo Clinic” series, noting that the series lacks context that CNN was provided, but chose not to investigate or report. Mayo also sent a letter directly to CNN leadership expressing its profound disappointment.

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Scientists at the University of California, Los Angeles present research on a curious cosmic phenomenon known as “whistlers” -- very low frequency packets of radio waves that race along magnetic field lines. Appearing in the Physics of Plasmas, the study provides new insights into the nature of whistlers and space plasmas and could one day aid in the development of practical plasma technologies with magnetic fields, including spacecraft thrusters that use charged particles as fuel.

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For 29 consecutive years, US News has placed UCLA on the Best Hospitals Honor Roll reserved for those that deliver high-quality care across a range of specialties, procedures and conditions.

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Hackensack Meridian Health Bayshore Medical Center in Holmdel, has again been awarded a three-year term of accreditation in ultrasound as a result of an extensive review by the American College of Radiology (ACR). Ultrasound imaging, also known as sonography, uses high-frequency sound waves to produce images of internal body parts to help providers diagnose illness, injury or other medical problems.

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A research team at FAU is enhancing how health care providers capture, tap into, and integrate vital information streams for patient-centered care.

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UC San Diego Health and Rancho Family Medical Group (RFMG) announced today that they have entered into an exclusive strategic affiliation designed to enhance the delivery of high-quality care to patients in Southwest Riverside County.

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Healthcare teams in patient care settings can develop policies and procedures to minimize the impact of drug shortages by incorporating new guidelines published today by ASHP (American Society of Health-System Pharmacists). The ASHP Guidelines on Managing Drug Product Shortages provide a framework for responding to drug shortages and outline best practices to improve quality of patient care.

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In a new study, a team led by clinician-researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) surveyed family members and patients with recent ICU experiences about their willingness to speak up about care concerns to medical providers.

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A new study out of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center reveals that the preventability of readmissions changes over time: readmissions within the first week after discharge are often preventable by the hospital, whereas readmissions later are often related to patients’ difficultly accessing outpatient clinics.

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The way health care providers are paid is shifting, demanding major changes by providers. Instead of being paid for the number of patients they see and tests ordered, the system is moving toward paying providers based on patient satisfaction, good clinical outcomes and cost effectiveness.

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Commercial insurance medical policies that do not cover treatment with proton therapy can make it difficult for patients to participate in randomized clinical trials funded by the NCI, part of the National Institutes of Health, that are evaluating the therapy.

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Anesthesia’s effect on the developing brain is being researched continually, and you’ll be comforted to know that anesthesia provided during one brief surgery is considered safe by the experts at the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA).

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Understanding and addressing what patients need from an emergency room encounter could help improve patient care.

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A new study puts large-scale evidence behind what many hospital patients already know: Having a urinary catheter may help empty the bladder, but it can hurt, lead to urinary tract infections, or cause other issues in the hospital and beyond. In fact, in-depth interviews and chart reviews from more than 2,000 patients shows that more than half of catheterized hospital patients experienced a complication of some kind.

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Over time, half of the people taking certain drugs for Parkinson’s disease may develop impulse control disorders such as compulsive gambling, shopping or eating, according to a study published in the June 20, 2018, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

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A Houston Methodist program that provides specialty patient care to uninsured and underserved patients received another multi-million dollar gift from Occidental Petroleum Corporation.

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A group of national leaders in quality and safety, led by researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC), has developed a consensus statement – a document developed by an independent panel of experts about a particular issue – intended to embrace an expanded definition of patient harm that includes non-physical harm, with the goal of improving the practice of respect across the continuum of care.

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Researchers from Penn State and Geisinger Health System developed a model to predict a patient's risk for needing further medical care three days after being discharged from the hospital.

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The Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation (APSF) and Foundation for Anesthesia Education and Research (FAER), charitable arms of the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA), today announced a call for applications for their new perioperative patient safety Mentored Research Training Grant. The grant has been founded jointly by the foundations, recognizing the overlap in their missions regarding developing physician investigators and advancing patient safety. Applications will be accepted between June 7, 2018 and December 14, 2018.

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A six-step bundle published in Critical Care Nurse offers bedside nurses and other members of the interprofessional team a comprehensive, step-by-step approach to early nutrition. The bundle reinforces new guidelines from the American Society of Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition.

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The WorldFest-Houston International Film Festival has honored a 56-minute film produced by Cizik School of Nursing at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) with a Platinum Remi Award given for a documentary under 60 minutes. The original documentary film, Caring Corrupted: the Killing Nurses of the Third Reich, is a grim cautionary story about nurses who participated in the Holocaust and abandoned their professional ethics during the Nazi era.

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he Dana-Farber Clinical Pathways will be deployed through the Philips IntelliSpace Oncology Platform, providing clinical decision support to physicians via a patient-centric solution.

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Betty Ozen has a spring in her step again, thanks to her quick-acting daughter, the wonders of telemedicine and a helping paw from Jojo.

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Families of critically ill hospital patients report higher satisfaction with clinician communication and a better perception of patient-centered care when the care team uses a low-cost strategy involving intensive emotional support and frequent meetings.

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For patients with sepsis, a serious infection causing widespread inflammation, immediate treatment is essential to improve the chances of survival. An updated “Hour-1 Bundle” of the international, evidence-based guidelines for treatment of sepsis is introduced in the June issue of Critical Care Medicine. The official journal of the Society of Critical Care Medicine (SCCM), Critical Care Medicine is published in the Lippincott portfolio by Wolters Kluwer.

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Emergency situations are always stressful, but knowing how to respond at such a time can greatly reduce the anxiety so that everyone involved can get through it safely.

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The American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA), announced today that it has made a strategic investment in ePreop, Inc., a health care software and services firm that provides critical data processing tools to ASA’s affiliate, the Anesthesia Quality Institute (AQI) and software services to participants in ASA’s Perioperative Surgical Home Collaborative.

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AACC, a global scientific and medical professional organization dedicated to better health through laboratory medicine, is pleased to announce that Representative Kevin Yoder (R-Kansas) is the recipient of AACC’s Outstanding Legislator Award for the 115th Congress. This award recognizes Rep. Yoder for his tireless efforts to improve the quality of patient care by advancing harmonization—or uniformity—of clinical laboratory test results.

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The U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science and the National Science Foundation have approved funding and start of construction for the SuperCDMS SNOLAB experiment, which will begin in the early 2020s to hunt for light dark matter particles. DOE’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory is playing a major role in building this new experiment, which is hosted at SNOLAB in Canada and managed by DOE’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory.

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What You Can Do, launched today by the UC Davis Violence Prevention Research Program, offers information and support for providers looking for ways to reduce firearm injury and death, particularly among patients at elevated risk.

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Oncology nurses at Johns Hopkins Hospital learn to treat chemotherapy medications, like their patients, with extreme care