L.A. NOW – Southern California
The California Department of Public Health issued $850,000 in fines against 14 hospitals for medical errors that caused — or were likely to cause — serious injury or death to patients, officials announced Thursday.
Three of the hospitals — Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital, Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center and Torrance Memorial Medical Center — were in Los Angeles County.
The link between health care worker fatigue and patient safety is not unfamiliar. But have you assessed your organization to mitigate health-care worker fatigue-related risks? The Joint Commission suggests the following: a review of the work shift schedule with staff involvement; an assessment of high-risk processes and procedures (such as patient hand-offs); education on sleep hygiene (getting enough sleep and practicing good sleep habits that can impact sleep); and promotion of a safe culture through open communication about fatigue concerns as well as a focus on teamwork to support staff working extended hours. The result of these efforts can protect your patients from harm.
Read more about what you can do in Issue 48 of the The Joint Commission Sentinel Event Alert.
For more information, check out our links to several Communication & Teamwork Toolkits!
Interested in finding out what your safety culture is? Check out the Survey on Patient Safety Culture!
This new report from the Commonwealth Fund offers lessons from hospitals that have not experienced any central line associated blood stream infections in their ICUs in 2009. These lessons include following evidenced based protocols, importance of a dedicated team overseeing central line insertions, value of participation in national and statewide collaborative, and the need for continued monitoring of infection rates and maintaining communication with staff about rates and goal achievement.
This month, the Perspectives on Safety section covers fall prevention with Ann L. Hendrich, RN, PhD, of Ascension Health. A leading expert on health care–associated falls, who developed one of the most widely used risk assessment tools. Listen to an excerpt online or download a podcast interview.
In the Spotlight Case, “Order Interrupted by Text: Multitasking Mishap,” while entering an order via smartphone to discontinue anticoagulation on a patient, a resident received a text message from a friend and forgot to complete the order.
The Kansas Healthcare Collaborative, along with the Missouri Center for Patient Safety, co-hosted the Cohort 5 & 6 CUSP/Stop CLABSI Mid-Course meetings in Topeka, Kansas this week! Over 30 teams from Kansas and Missouri were in attendance and participated in group work on overcoming project barriers and walked through the process of learning from a defect.
Several Missouri teams were recognized for completing 6 or more consecutive months without a CLABSI in 2011, and teams from Cohort 2 in the Greater Kansas City area were recognized for completing the two year project. Congratulations to all the Missouri teams!
“Conquering Chaos – the Humanity and Science of Safe Care, the 2012 Missouri Center for Patient Safety Conference will be on Tuesday, April 17, 2011 at the Stoney Creek Inn in Columbia, Missouri!
We welcome your support for safe health care through a Sponsorship and/or hosting a Vendor Booth!
Attendance is expected to be over 250. Historically, attendees include executives, senior managers, patient safety officers, and clinicians, and others with a vested interest in improving the safety of care – health plans, employers, attorneys, insurers, policymakers and regulators. Read More
The MOCPS has been invited to lead a six-month course on the Comprehensive Unit-based Safety Program (CUSP) to over 70 Neonatal Intensive Care Units (NICUs) located throughout 7 states. All participating NICUs have joined a national collaborative sponsored by the Health Research Educational Trust (HRET) to stop central-line associated blood stream infections (CLABSIs). Read More
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