Trends, factors linked to physician burnout
Editor's Note Physician burnout has reached a critically high level, fueled by regulatory, compliance, and technology demands, but health system leaders at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston are working to address and relieve burnout and bring the joy back to the practice of medicine with centrally and locally designed…
Expect the unexpected: How we recovered operations after Hurricane Harvey
Whatever your facility’s disaster management plan, it needs continual refinement to account for the differences between imagined and real scenarios. Hurricane Harvey, which hit Houston hard on Saturday, August 26, 2017, is a case in point. The storm brought more than 60 inches of rain within a couple of days,…
Vigilance best protects ASCs from workplace violence
Violence is a fact of life in healthcare settings. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration estimates that, on average, healthcare workers are four times as likely to be victimized as those in private industry. Most types of violent incidents involve patients or visitors acting out against staff, accounting for 93%…
Pregnant women working night shifts have higher risk for miscarriage
Editor's Note Pregnant women who work two night shifts per week have a heightened risk for miscarriage after pregnancy week 8, this Danish study finds. Of 22,744 pregnant women analyzed, 2 or more night shifts the previous week increased the risk of miscarriage after pregnancy week 8 (hazard ratio, 1.32).…
'Coming clean' in the SPD requires collaboration and competency—Part 1
Contaminated surgical instruments made ECRI Institute’s 2019 annual top 10 list of health technology hazards, coming in at number five: “Mishandling flexible endoscopes after disinfection can lead to patient infections.” Number two on the list in 2018 was “Endoscope reprocessing failures continue to expose patients to infection risk.” It’s not…
Prioritizing patient safety unites and empowers OR team—Part 2
Several never events at The Medical Center of Aurora (TMCA) in Aurora, Colorado, over a 1-year period prompted leaders there to launch patient safety first (PSF) initiatives. Part 1 of this series discussed how these initiatives were identified and implemented, and the importance of evidence-based communication tools (OR Manager, March…
Failure to debrief after anesthesia critical events tied to communication breakdowns
Editor's Note Failure to debrief after critical events is common in anesthesia trainees and teams, and communication breakdowns are associated with the failure to debrief, this study finds. Over a 1-year period at a large academic medical center, anesthesiology residents and some attending anesthesiologists were audited and/or interviewed about the…
Incidence of workplace bullying among nurse managers
Editor's Note Nurse managers are recipients of workplace bullying, coming from executive nurse leaders, clinical nurses, and their management peers, this study finds. In this survey of nurse managers across the US, 35% said they had been a target of workplace bullying with severity levels ranging from occasional to severe.…
Physician well-being and burnout improving, but increased burnout risk remains
Editor's Note Though physician burnout and satisfaction with work-life integration are improving, physicians remain at high risk for burnout, compared to workers in other fields, this study finds. Researchers from the Mayo Clinic, Stanford University, and the American Medical Association surveyed 30,456 US physicians in more than 20 specialties; 5,197…
Effect of ‘grit’ on success and well-being of nurse leaders
Editor's Note The personality quality termed “grit” was associated with longevity as a leader, higher educational attainment, and reduced burnout in nurse leaders in this study. A survey of nurse leaders across the US measuring grit (ie, courage and resolve, strength of character) and well-being found that grit was significantly…
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