Healthcare Risk Management articles from January 2005

Healthcare Risk Management archives from January 2005

The science of safety: Duke moves in a new direction to improve patient safety: changes occur after organ transplant sentinel event.
January 1, 2005... In the aftermath of a tragic sentinel event traced back to poor processes, the appointment of Karen Frush, MD, as the new patient safety officer at Duke University Hospital System (DUHS) in Durham, NC, raises several immediate questions. ...

Assumptions and a lack of redundancy led to trouble.(transplant error at Duke University Hospital)
January 1, 2005... The 2003 transplant error at Duke University Hospital in Durham, NC, that led to the appointment of Karen Frush, MD, as the new patient safety officer at Duke University Hospital System (DUHS) in Durham,, was traced to a lack of redundancy in...

Check the slip resistance of floors to prevent falls.
January 1, 2005... Liquids on floors represent the biggest risk for falls in health care facilities, but risk managers often overlook the need to assess the fall risk of a particular area with wet surfaces, not dry ones, says an expert. Henry Shable, senior...

New research shows brain injuries stem from infection.
January 1, 2005... New research continues to dispel the once widely accepted belief that premature infants suffer brain injury from a lack of oxygen usually attributed to obstetrician error. In fact, infection plays a larger role, according to high-risk...

Stolen ambulance tragedy: $12.5 million payout.
January 1, 2005... Health care providers in Texas have agreed to pay $12.5 million to settle a lawsuit stemming from the theft of an unattended ambulance, which was then involved in an accident that killed a father and seriously injured the rest of his family....

Flu shortage caused by liability fears? Maybe not.
January 1, 2005... When risk, managers first heard that there wouldn't be enough flu vaccine from the two manufacturers still providing it, many probably reacted with the same thought: That's what you get when money hungry trial lawyers run health care companies...

Respond to the shortage by encouraging sick days.
January 1, 2005... So, if the flu season hits your community hard, will your health care staff suffer because they didn't get enough flu shots? Quite possibly. But there is something risk managers can do: Urge employees to stay home when they're sick. Flu...

AHRQ offers a tool for measuring patient safety.(Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality)
January 1, 2005... Patient safety is on everyone's minds these days, but how do you know how well your organization already is doing on this topic? One way is a tool offered by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), an arm of the Department of...

ISMP: med errors demand a more focused response.
January 1, 2005... Five years after the landmark Institute of Medicine (IOM) report, To Err is Human: Building a Safer Health System, not enough is being done to address medication errors, warns the Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP) in Huntingdon...

CE questions.
January 1, 2005... 1. How does Karen Frush, MD, describe her role? A. She provides the "big picture," and then the risk managers and other leaders implement the idea. B. She takes direction from the risk managers at the hospitals and helps them as...

Teaching/learning packets engender culture change: initiative involved nurses, physicians, therapists.
January 1, 2005... The team of safety and education professionals at UPMC (University of Pittsburgh Medical Center) in McKeesport, PA, has taken a pre-existing vehicle--teaching/learning packets--used successfully by the nursing staff and adapted it to an...

Negligent treatment of epileptic seizures results in death: $1.5 million settlement in New York.
January 1, 2005... News: A man presented to a hospital after experiencing two epileptic seizures and a constant twitching in his leg. Hospital staff diagnosed him with epilepsia partialis continua and hospitalized him. During the next week and a half, the patient...