New research into hospital bed technology could soon represent a giant leap forward in patient care. University of New Hampshire professor John LaCourse is negotiating with hospital bed manufacturers to adopt his programmed algorithm technology, which could become the basis for “smart” computerized hospital beds.
Using a widely heralded Johns Hopkins checklist and other patient-safety tools, intensive care units across the state of Michigan reduced the rate of potentially lethal bloodstream infections to near zero.
A prescribed set of hospital-wide patient-safety programs can lead to rapid improvements in the “culture of safety” even in a large, complex, academic medical center, according to a new study by safety experts at Johns Hopkins.
The University of Maryland Medical Center has been named by the Leapfrog Group a "Top Hospital of the Decade" for patient safety and quality of care. The award recognizes the medical center’s inclusion on the Leapfrog Top Hospital list every year since its inception in 2006. The medical center shares the Top Hospital of the Decade honor with only one other hospital—Virginia Mason Medical Center in Seattle, Washington. The awards were presented on November 30, 2010, in Washington, D.C.
Strokes, seizures and other neurological complications related to heart surgery account for "considerable morbidity and mortality," Loyola University Health System neurologists report.
CPR quality is worse during in-hospital cardiac arrests occurring overnight than those that happen during the day, according to a new University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine study that will be presented at the American Heart Association's annual Scientific Sessions on November 14.
Just as with everyone else perhaps, the more hours surgeons work, and the more nights they spend on call each week, the more likely they are to face burn-out, depression, dissatisfaction with their careers and serious work-home conflicts, according to a major new study led by Johns Hopkins and Mayo Clinic researchers.
White paper -- published in the Journal of Hospital Medicine and endorsed by AACN and other leading healthcare organizations -- outlines 10 key areas related to verifying that current patient medications are correct, medically safe and necessary.
A research team led by Ken Krantz MD, PhD of NovaBay focused on impetigo, a highly contagious skin infection that affects mostly children and is caused by S. aureus, including the increasingly common antibiotic-resistant MRSA and S. pyogenes. It is currently treated with antibiotic ointments to which bacteria may develop resistance.
Research published in the November issue of Anesthesiology describes development of a new Risk Stratification Index (RSI) that allows important clinical outcomes such as length-of-stay and mortality for surgical patients to be accurately compared among hospitals using only publicly available billing data.
A recently formed Boston-based start up called HanGenix is the first company to be spun out of the new CIMIT Accelerator program. HanGenix is focused on reducing hospital acquired infections (HAI) by installing comprehensive hand hygiene solutions that remind clinicians to perform proper hand hygiene and document their compliance. The CIMIT Accelerator program facilitates technological innovations that can be handed off to industry within twelve to eighteen months.
The Food and Drug Administration recently published a warning to doctors and patients about an increased risk of thigh fractures with a widely used group of bone-strengthening drugs called bisphosphonates.
A study has demonstrated how hospitals can improve patient safety and cut costs by reducing the number of blood transfusions.
A UNC study shows radio frequency tags may help prevent surgical sponges from being left in patients after operations.
Second annual World MRSA Day to pay tribute to those affected by antibiotic-defying bacterium that sickens, kills thousands around the world.
The growing use of rapid response teams dispatched by hospitals to evaluate patients whose conditions have suddenly deteriorated may be masking systemic problems in how hospitals care for their sickest patients, says a prominent Johns Hopkins patient safety expert.
Timely, acuity-stratified care delivered by the coordinated efforts of a team of healthcare professionals has the potential to nationally save nearly 100,000 hospitalized patient lives a year, as well as significant healthcare dollars, according to a large prospective study by Geisinger’s Director of Surgical Innovation, Thanjavur S. Ravikumar, M.D., FACS.
Health care organizations should disclose medical mistakes that affect multiple patients even if patients were not harmed by the event.
Dr. William A. Petri Jr. of the University of Virginia is an authority on Clostridium difficile, a tenacious bacterium that causes half a million infections a year.
For one year and counting, Long Island Jewish (LIJ) Medical Center has achieved a zero central-line infection rate in its surgical intensive care unit (SICU), a significant accomplishment for hospitals.
Acute care hospitals in the United States varied in their policies and practices of screening and treating methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infections, but most were consistent with national guideline recommendations, according to researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Underdiagnosed swallowing condition causes complications in hospitalized patients.
The University of Michigan’s program of full disclosure and compensation for medical errors has garnered much attention since its inception in 2001. Now a new study published today shows that policy has resulted in a decrease in new claims for compensation (including lawsuits), time to claim resolution and lower liability costs.
Urinary catheters are often left in place longer than needed, and new research from the University of Michigan shows that reminder systems that encourage hospital staff to remove catheters promptly can reduce the rate of catheter-associated urinary tract infections by 52 percent.
Two studies point to a new way to a vaccinate against drug-resistant Staphylococcus aureus -- also known as MRSA. One counteracts the bacteria's tools for evading the immune system; the other disrupts the germ's tissue-damaging mechanism. The combination may protect people from MRSA and provide lasting immunity.
An analysis of data from 2005 through 2008 of nine metropolitan areas in the U.S. indicates that health care-associated invasive methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infections decreased among patients with infections that began in the community or in the hospital, according to a study in the August 11 issue of JAMA.
System aims to prevent the risk of adverse drug events, which can pose serious danger to older hospital patients.
Between 2000 and 2006, the proportion of patients who died in the hospital after having heart bypass surgery fell from 42 to 24 deaths per 1,000 admissions.
Hospital-acquired infections are the leading cause of potentially preventable mortality among pediatric patients, according to a study of pediatric patient-safety incidents issued today by HealthGrades, the leading independent health care ratings organization.
People with schizophrenia are more likely than others to sustain medical injuries during non-psychiatric hospital stays, a large national study finds.
The number of residents at nursing homes who were kept physically restrained dropped by more than half from 1999 to 2007.
As warnings and concern increase over the health risks of commonly used scanning tests involving high doses of radiation, radiologists and scientists are seeking ways to improve the safety of the tools they use in diagnosing disease.
Next week the city of Philadelphia will host the 52nd annual meeting of the American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM), the premier organization in medical physics, a broadly-based scientific and professional discipline encompassing physics principles and applications in medicine and biology.
In health care reform discussions, talk inevitably turns to making hospitals and physicians accountable for patient outcomes. But in a commentary being published in the July 14 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, Johns Hopkins patient safety expert Peter Pronovost, M.D., Ph.D., argues that the health care industry doesn’t yet have measurable, achievable and routine ways to prevent patient harm — and that, in many cases, there are too many barriers in the way to attain them.
The University of Illinois at Chicago's Institute for Patient Safety Excellence has received a $3 million grant to evaluate its comprehensive process for responding to patient harm events at nine other Chicago area hospitals.
AHRQ today announced grants to support efforts by states and health systems to implement and evaluate patient safety approaches and medical liability reforms.
During past recessions, the financial stability of hospitals seemed to be nearly indestructible. But researchers at the University of Michigan Health System and St. Joseph Mercy Health System say the current national economic crisis may be an exception.
New findings from Johns Hopkins suggest that most quality-improvement (QI) initiatives in U.S. hospitals are reviewed internally before they are conducted, but there is not routine consideration of the ethical issues associated with them.
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