The concept of a just culture is relatively new to the healthcare industry and has become a critical and necessary component of any organization’s approach to improving patient safety. I have quickly learned the importance of just culture as I review patient safety events, attend root cause...
Until 2007, nurses at Riley Hospital for Children in Indianapolis relied on traditional shift change reporting methods to communicate patient care information from caregiver to caregiver. But when challenged by Riley’s leadership team to find ways to improve hospital documentation, the Clinical...
Q. We are in the process of moving to an electronic system. How have other hospitals managed co-signatures on high-risk medications when nurses are scanning meds and patient IDs at the bedside? We would like to make it as easy as possible for the nurses.
If your hospital is lucky enough to be within the borders of the state of Maryland, you can participate in the Maryland Patient Safety Center’s (MPSC) SAFE from FALLS initiative. The project, based on a program by the same name being run through the Minnesota Hospital Association, has been...
Although the 2010 National Patient Safety Goals (NPSG) are a much smaller set than last year’s version, keeping up with those goals that moved to the general standards is important for maintaining best practices as well as receiving fewer requirements for improvement on your next Joint...
Collecting core measures data is a part of everyday life at most healthcare facilities, affecting various types of staff members and CMS reimbursement. Assessing whether your facility is managing those data well and using the information contained in your core measures data is vital to...
In April 2008, Baystate Medical Center (BMC), a 653-bed teaching hospital in Springfield, MA, began implementation of its Bar Code Point of Care (BCPOC) technology to positively impact medication administration in reducing errors.
Editor’s note: The following column explores patient safety from the perspective of a newcomer to the field. Columnist Catherine Hinz, MHA, is the patient safety lead at HealthEast Care System in St. Paul, MN. Previously, Hinz worked for seven years as...
Engaged nurses who feel like they work in an organization that values their efforts and opinions have an incredibly positive effect on the quality of care patients receive. Studies have shown that organizational support for nursing leads to better quality of care, which can reduce mortality...