Vanderbilt adds new twist to M&M tradition with focus on improvement
The morbidity and mortality (M&M) conference is a traditional forum that provides clinicians with an opportunity to discuss errors and adverse events. Most are discipline specific. When a mortality or significant morbidity occurs in the OR, however, it is rarely owned by a single discipline. Multiple disciplines take care of…
New pressure ulcer risk tool moves forward with implementation study
The high incidence of pressure ulcer development in surgical patients puts the onus on perioperative nurses to be proactive in risk assessment and use of preventive measures. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) estimates that each pressure ulcer adds more than $43,000 in costs to a hospital stay,…
Turn OR staff into 'legal eagles' to track unusual occurrences
Adverse events occur in the best of ORs, but, of course, the goal is to prevent them whenever possible. One strategy used in surgical services at Saint Luke’s Hospital in Kansas City, Missouri, is to turn staff into “legal eagles” who go beyond reporting adverse events after they occur to…
Surgeon-nurse duo delivers excellent, efficient patient care
The number of nurse practitioners is expected to double by 2025, and the need for surgical first assistants is growing as residents’ work hours are reduced and surgeon assistants are eliminated to cut costs. This situation offers a great opportunity for advanced practice perioperative nurses. A double certification of nurse…
Editorial
Hospital safety scores released by the Leapfrog Group on April 29 show a 6.3% average improvement since 2012. Performance at almost a third of hospitals has improved at least 10% since 2012, but some hospitals’ scores have dropped. And with medical errors tied to more than 400,000 deaths per year…
Executive walk rounds open gates to communication with staff
“Each year, diagnostic errors result in the deaths of an estimated 44,000 to 80,000 patients, and many thousands die because of teamwork and communication errors affecting their care or because they do not receive necessary evidence-based interventions,” according to an article published online last year in JAMA. No one would…
A risk analysis of the steam sterilization process can improve patient safety
The steam sterilization process is complex and includes a number of important steps: decontamination, preparation and packaging, sterilization, quality control, sterile storage, and product distribution. The effectiveness of this process cannot be determined by inspection or testing of each product, and because sterility assurance is a probability function, it must…
Restructuring and revamping workflow help a small hospital make big strides
Working for a small facility after spending many years at a large one can present a host of leadership challenges, but meeting those challenges with process changes and improved efficiencies can be highly satisfying. After serving more than 23 years at the Cedar Crest campus of Lehigh Valley Health Network…
Rounding tool off to a good start in improving patient satisfaction
A mobile, web-based rounding tool is allowing the perioperative leadership team at Vail Valley Medical Center (VVMC) in Vail, Colorado, to collect, analyze, and report on information gathered from surgeons, staff, and patients to improve quality of care and move toward high reliability. Software designed by MyRounding Solutions in Littleton,…
Editorial
Efforts to increase patient safety have been successful in some areas, but less so in others—notably, postoperative outcomes—according to a recent study. Researchers who analyzed Medicare Patient Safety Monitoring System data for the period 2005 through 2011 found declines in adverse event rates for patients hospitalized because of acute myocardial…
Free Daily News
- Study: COVID-19's impact on oncological surgery offers lessons for future crises
- Study links pandemic stress to persistent increases in nursing-sensitive quality indicators
- Save the date for the 2025 OR Business Management Conference
- Study: Education, exercise improve knee OA with or without prior surgery
- Study: Early surgery outperforms endoscopy for long-term pancreatitis
- Study: Blood thinner, NSAID combination raises bleeding risk
- Hospital financial report predicts stability, high cybersecurity costs for 2025
- IV fluid shortage drives innovation in hospital hydration practices
- FDA Class 1 recalls target anesthesia workstations, ambulatory infusion pumps, ventilators
- Five leadership lessons from an ASC CEO