Physicians, nurses, and healthcare staff are in a unique position to help the human trafficking victims who walk through their doors. But for that to work, providers first need to know how to identify them.
There’s an estimated 1 million human trafficking victims living in America—a...
Can you take a punch? How do you react to being backed into a corner and screamed at? Can you keep a level head when someone spits at, grabs, slaps, or pushes you? Have you been held at knifepoint before?
If a job interviewer asked you these questions, you’d probably bolt for the door...
A recent study sheds new light on the prevalence of postoperative complications.
In November 2016, a study published in the British Journal of Anesthesia (BJA) found that each year there are 50 million postop complications worldwide. Those complications in turn result in 1.5...
The Institute of Medicine sent waves racing across the surface of American healthcare when it published To Err Is Human in 1999. The unsettling report suggested medical errors were killing at least 44,000 and as many as 98,000 patients nationwide each year. Even the lower end of that spectrum...
At the end of March, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced its third global safety initiative, the Global Patient Safety Challenge on Medication Safety, which calls on facilities to cut the rate of medication-related errors in half by 2022. The organization hopes to do this by:
To say readmissions are a big deal in medicine is a massive understatement. The Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program (HRRP) was enacted in 2010 specifically to take on this problem and has imposed nearly $1 billion in penalties. An estimated $17 billion in Medicare spending is spent annually...
If you work in healthcare, then you’re probably aware that there’s room for improvement. You’re also probably aware of the deluge of strategies, solutions, recommendations, and guidance on enhancing quality and patient safety—all of which require time, money, equipment, metrics, and manpower you...
There’s been a flood of different measures and metrics in recent years. CMS, Joint Commission, hospital organizations, and vendors each have their own way of calculating a hospital’s ranking and improving patient care.
While hospitals are already expected to conduct certain surveys by...
A deadly infection that has lingered throughout healthcare for the last several decades is finding a foothold at the national level thanks to recently updated definitions that offer clinicians a more targeted approach for detection and prevention.
A quality measurement that focuses on patient symptoms and overall quality of life is poised to take on a greater role in patient safety. In some parts of the country, it already has.
Patient reported outcomes (PRO)?defined by the National Quality Forum (NQF) as...
