Joint Commission journal on quality and patient safety / Joint Commission Resources
-
Poor communication of medical information at transition points of care--at admission, transfer, and discharge--often results in medication errors, but various strategies can reduce the likelihood of error.
-
Jt Comm J Qual Patient Saf · Apr 2006
Using telemedicine to facilitate thrombolytic therapy for patients with acute stroke.
Recent stroke-care requirements state that all stroke patients should be screened for intravenous recombinant tissue plasminogen activator (rt-PA) and treated, if the appropriate inclusion and exclusion criteria are met. Two community hospitals 90-130 miles east of Houston deployed telemedicine (videoteleconferencing) to provide acute stroke consultative services. DEVELOPING A TELEMEDICINE CAPACITY: According to the Brain Attack Coalition's recommendations, neurosurgical services need to be accessible within two hours. Given their incomplete neurology coverage, the remote-site hospitals identified telemedicine as the best option, with the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston stroke team as the provider of expertise. ⋯ Telemedicine facilitated thrombolytic therapy for acute stroke patients and is intended not to replace care provided by remote-site providers but rather to address a time- and spatially related emergency need.