Beep. Beep. Beep. The telltale noise of a hospital is the bleeps, the sweeps, and the creeps of the many machines hospital patients are hooked up to during their stay. These machines have alarms—as many as 400 per patient—and many are important. They alert staff if a patient needs immediate...
Many patients’ first experience with a hospital happens in the ED. Hospitals know this and are constantly striving to improve the patient experience in the ED—not an easy task. There are lots of patients, and most, if not all, are worried and anxious.
As patient safety, infection control, and quality improvement professionals continue toward their “path to zero”—as in zero hospital-acquired infections, zero medication errors, and zero wrong-site surgeries—at some point or another, they usually stumble upon resistance. The...
When you read the words “patient safety” or “quality,” what images immediately come to mind? It might be nurses washing their hands, fall risk signs, doctors with checklists, bar codes, surgical timeout posters, sterile gloves, or maybe a patient’s color-coded alert wristband.
