Joint Commission journal on quality and patient safety / Joint Commission Resources
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Jt Comm J Qual Patient Saf · Jul 2010
How I nearly MET my maker: a story of clinical futile cycles and survival.
In this series, the articles have highlighted a variety of implementation methods and uses of rapid response systems (RRSs). They have described how RRSs have been uniquely tailored to the organizations' culture and clinical environments, with largely positive results following implementation. In this article, Dr. ⋯ Furthermore, it must be implemented and operated in the context of the hospital's organizational culture. Although the administrative and quality improvement arms of the RRS are often underemphasized, this story exemplifies their importance--not just for RRSs but indeed for all hospital systems. The author, one of the leading proponents of rapid response systems worldwide, recounts his own close-call experience, in which he found himself in what he terms a clinical futile cycle.
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Jt Comm J Qual Patient Saf · Jul 2010
Patient safety climate in hospitals: act locally on variation across units.
An appreciation of how human factors affect patient safety has led to development of safety climate surveys and recommendations that hospitals regularly assess safety attitudes among caregivers. A better understanding of variation in patient safety climate across units within hospitals would facilitate internal efforts to improve safety climate. A study was conducted to assess the extent and nature of variation in safety climate across units within an academic medical center. ⋯ Safety climate may vary markedly within hospitals. Assessments of safety climate and educational and other interventions should anticipate considerable variation across units within individual hospitals. Furthermore, clinicians at individual hospitals may offer different relative perceptions of the safety climate than their professional peers at other hospitals.