on 5 patient safety solutions
The World Health Organization Collaborating Center for Patient Safety and the WHO World Alliance for Patient Safety are soliciting comments from healthcare professionals and provider organizations, national health ministries, patient safety advocates and consumers on five proposed life-saving patient safety solutions. The WHO Collaborating Center is jointly sponsored by The Joint Commission and Joint Commission International.
The aim of the proposed patient safety solutions is to translate knowledge about patient safety interventions into practical solutions that can be adopted by physicians, nurses and other healthcare providers worldwide. The proposed solutions address (1) preventing patient falls, (2) preventing pressure ulcers, (3) responses to deteriorating patients, (4) communicating critical test results and (5) preventing central line-associated bloodstream infections.
The electronic Patient Safety Solutions survey will be available online here until Feb. 29.
Center to highlight nurse shortage-A new Center to Champion Nursing in America, funded by a $10 million Robert Wood Johnson Foundation grant to the AARP Foundation, intends to pursue "an aggressive agenda to elevate the visibility" of the U.S. nursing shortage, while identifying actions that can improve the quality of patient care. The new center will press for more state and federal funding to support nursing education, particularly by addressing faculty shortages at nurse training institutions. It will push for including nurse leaders on hospital and other healthcare organizations' governing and policymaking boards, and encourage new research on nurse workforce issues and links between adequate nurse staffing and high-quality health care. Click here for more information.
Add 1 RN; save patient lives-Adding one full-time registered nurse to care for patients could cut the number of U.S. hospital-related deaths significantly, according to an article in the December 2007 issue of the journal Medical Care. The article notes, however, that the cost of added nursing staff and the worsening shortage of qualified nurses make that scenario unlikely.
Researchers evaluated 27 studies of patient outcomes in relation to RN-to-patient ratios. They found that RN staffing averages around 3 patients-per-RN in ICUs and 4 patients-per-RN in surgical units. For every 1,000 hospitalized patients, the reviewers estimated adding one full-time RN per patient day could save six surgical patient lives.
Mass. hospitals won't charge for 'never errors'-The Massachusetts Hospital Association announced that all hospitals in the state have agreed not to charge patients or insurers for nine "serious adverse events" defined by the National Quality Forum, including wrong-body part, wrong-patient, wrong-procedure surgeries, as well as cases of retained foreign objects during invasive procedures. The policy will take effect early this year, according to an MHA news release.
Roadmap for 2008 hospital quality reporting-A month-by-month action checklist to ensure compliance with existing and new medical care quality-data reporting requirements is available online from the American Hospital Association, the Federation of American Hospitals and the Association of American Medical Colleges.
CRNA shortage challenges VA facilities-Looming retirements by certified registered nurse anesthetists (CRNAs), who provide most of the anesthesia care to patients in Veterans Health Administration medical facilities, pose a serious challenge for VA hospital administrators. According to a study issued last month by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, 54% of VA medical facility chief anesthesiologists reported that the shortage of CRNAs had forced them to temporarily close some operating rooms, and 72% said they had delayed some elective surgery cases.
Results from the GAO's survey of VA facility chief anesthesiologists pointed to projections that 26% of VA CRNAs will either retire or leave VA services during the next five years. More than half of VA CRNAs are more than 51 years old, the survey found. VA facility officials cited low VA CRNA salaries, when compared with salaries paid to nonVA CRNAs in the same local markets, as their primary recruitment and retention challenge. As a result, more than one-third of VA medical facilities gave recruitment bonuses to newly hired CRNAs during Fiscal Years 2005 and 2006.
System errors boost malpractice incidence-System errors, including medication-related and communication errors, healthcare-associated infections, medical record and surgical site identification errors, contributed to 30% of the 363 closed and settled medical malpractice claims examined in a study by The Doctor's Company, a leading physician-owned medical malpractice insurer. The study covered closed settled claims from 2004 to 2006.
Study lists leading conditions for hospital charges-Coronary artery disease, mothers' pregnancies and deliveries, newborn infants, heart attacks and congestive heart failure were the leaders among 20 health conditions that accounted for more than half the $873.2 billion in charges billed for 39 million stays in community hospitals in 2005, according to a federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) study issued last month. The annual total for hospital charges was up 7% from 2004 levels, AHRQ said.
Nurses exposed to workplace hazards-Exposure to common surgical supplies, including sterilizing and disinfecting solutions, hand-hygiene products, anesthetic gases and latex gloves, may be associated with increased risks of cancer, asthma, miscarriage and birth defects among healthcare workers, according to the nonprofit Environmental Working Group.
A recent online survey of 1,500 nurses by EWG, Health Care Without Harm, the American Nurses Association and the University of Maryland School of Nursing's Environmental Health Education Center found that participating nurses who were exposed frequently to sterilizing chemicals, housekeeping cleaners, residues from drug preparation, radiation, and other hazardous substances reported increased rates of asthma, miscarriage, and certain cancers. Increases in cancers and birth defects, particularly musculoskeletal defects, in the nurses' children also were reported.
AORN offers speakers for chapter programs-AORN maintains a directory of member experts available to speak during chapter education seminars or other programs or events. It's easy to go online and search for a particular speaker or topic for a program. Searching by states helps chapters find local expert speakers for educational or fundraising activities. More than 100 available speakers are listed currently. Interested in sharing your expertise and experience, while gaining experience in presentation skills? The Speaker's Bureau enables you to list topics that you could present.
Medicare code editor user guide-A user guide for the Medicare Code Editor, which detects and reports errors in coding claims data, is available from CMS. The guide, which is effective through this September, describes each coding element and corresponding ICD-I-CM code lists.
Half of Americans aged 50 haven't had colonoscopies-Even though colorectal cancer is the second-leading cause of U.S. cancer deaths, only about half (44 million) of the noninstitutionalized U.S. civilian population aged 50 or older has ever had a screening colonoscopy-the widely recommended screening tool for early detection of colorectal cancer among men and women in that age cohort. Detailed data on rates of colonoscopies among various ethnic and population groups is presented in a recent statistical brief issued by AHRQ.
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