The Hospital Safety Score, issued twice yearly, uses national performance measures from the Leapfrog Hospital Survey, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), and the American Hospital Association. Leapfrog rated 2,571 hospitals on their ability…

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Some healthcare facility leaders have managed to reduce or even eliminate the incidence of retained surgical items (RSIs), but vulnerability remains despite increased focus on this problem. A 2015 article in the Journal of the American Medical Association cited a median estimate for RSIs: one event per 10,000 procedures, with…

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Healthcare is striving to become an industry of high-reliability organizations. Part of being a high-reliability industry means staying vigilant and identifying problems proactively. That’s one function of patient safety organizations (PSOs), such as ECRI Institute PSO, and one of the reasons ECRI produces its annual Top 10 list of patient…

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Most OR leaders today are concerned about the growing problem of diabetes in surgical care. More than 30 million people in the US now have diabetes mellitus, and many studies have demonstrated its adverse impact on surgical outcomes. The challenge is translating this research into practice. Managing diabetes is always…

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For an ambulatory surgery center (ASC), maintaining a safe physical environment for patients generally falls to the administrator and governing board. For those who lack expertise in healthcare architecture, building codes, and risk management, it may pay to hire a consultant. Even so, ASC managers remain responsible for compliance. Fortunately,…

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Editor's Note An update on wrong-site surgery from the Pennsylvania Patient Safety Advisory (PPSA) found that the three most common types reported since 2004 were: Anesthetic blocks by anesthesiologists and surgeons (26.6%) Wrong-level spinal procedures (12.8%) Pain-management procedures (11.5%). The analysis included a total of 689 reported events.  

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Editor's Note There were 2.1 million fewer patient harms between 2010 and 2014, resulting in thousands fewer accidental deaths and billions of dollars in health cost savings, finds this analysis of the Medicare Patient Safety Monitoring System (MPSMS). The analysis found that from 2005 to 2011, the rate of adverse…

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Editor's Note Hospitals with better nursing work environments and above-average staffing levels were associated with better value (ie, lower mortality with similar costs), especially for higher risk patients, this study finds. The study included 25,752 elderly Medicare general surgery patients treated at 35 focal hospitals (mean nurse-to-bed ratio, 1.51) and…

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Editor's Note A 16-hour delay from emergency department (ED) admission or a 12-hour delay from hospital admission to performance of an appendectomy was not associated with an increased risk of surgical site infections (SSIs), in this study. Of 1,338 patients included in the study, 70% had a diagnosis of simple…

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Editor's Note Healthcare disparities are widely established and include differential access, care, and outcomes stemming from factors such as minority group and socioeconomic status, finds this meta-analysis. In this examination of 328 studies of healthcare disparities, researchers identified five major themes for causes of surgical disparities: patient factors−demographic, physiologic, and…

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