Healthcare is striving to become an industry of high-reliability organizations, and part of being a high-reliability industry means staying vigilant and identifying problems proactively. ECRI Institute’s annual Top 10 list helps organizations identify looming patient safety challenges and offers suggestions and resources for addressing them. ECRI Institute relied on event…

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Many experts see cardiovascular (CV) care as the next wave in ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs), and a hybrid office-based lab (OBL)/ASC model is gaining momentum across the country. Robert J. Zasa, MSHHA, FACMPE, president and CEO of Ambulatory Systems Development, LLC, in Incline Village, Nevada, sees the hybrid arrangement as…

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Editor's Note A study published May 15 by the Leapfrog Group finds that more than 160,000 preventable deaths occur in US hospitals annually, a decline of about 56,000 from 3 years ago. The Leapfrog Group uses hospital performance on 16 patient safety measures to assign hospital grades. Of the 2,620…

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Editor's Note An increased in adherence to Enhanced Recovery after Surgery (ERAS) protocols was associated with a decrease in postoperative complications in this study. Of 2,084 patients analyzed, 566 had moderate to severe postoperative complications. The number of patients with moderate to severe complications was lower in the ERAS group…

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Editor's Note In the May 10 Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that hepatitis A infections were up 294% in 2016-2018, compared with 2013-2015. The increases are related to outbreaks among homeless people, men who have sex with men, people who use drugs,…

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Editor's Note The nurse work environment is associated with the quality of nursing care, nurse job outcomes, patient outcomes, and patient satisfaction, this study finds. This meta-analysis of 17 articles that reported data from 2,677 hospitals, 141 nursing units, 165,024 nurses, and 1,368,420 patients, in 22 countries found consistent, significant…

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Editor's Note Education and monitoring of hand hygiene among anesthesia providers in the OR improved hand hygiene compliance in this study from the Duke University School of Nursing, Durham, North Carolina. Anesthesia providers were educated on the World Health Organization’s five indications for hand hygiene, and their access to hand…

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The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Joint Commission require healthcare facilities to have policies and protocols in place for emergency situations and to hold regular practice drills. With natural disasters like hurricanes, floods, or fires, often there is at least some warning—some amount of time to…

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Compassion fatigue can come into play at any stage of nurses’ careers. Nursing is growing at a faster rate than other occupations, but it carries a high risk for burnout. Loss of job satisfaction, job-related distress, or perhaps exposure to too many traumatic events can threaten the ability of staff…

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Whatever your facility’s disaster management plan, it needs continual refinement to account for the differences between imagined and real scenarios. Hurricane Harvey, which hit Houston hard on Saturday, August 26, 2017, is a case in point. The storm brought more than 60 inches of rain within a couple of days,…

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