Joint Commission journal on quality and patient safety / Joint Commission Resources
-
Jt Comm J Qual Patient Saf · Feb 2011
Using a data-matrix-coded sponge counting system across a surgical practice: impact after 18 months.
Retained surgical items (RSIs), most commonly sponges, are infrequent. Yet despite sponge-counting standards, failure to maintain an accurate count is a common error. To improve counting performance, technology solutions have been developed. A data-matrix-coded sponge (DMS) system was evaluated and implemented in a high-volume academic surgical practice at Mayo Clinic Rochester (MCR). The primary end point was prevention of sponge RSIs after 18 months. ⋯ After 18 months, a DMS system eliminated sponge RSIs from a high-volume surgical practice. The DMS system caused no work-flow disruption or increases in case duration. Staff satisfaction was acceptable, with a high degree of trust in the system. The DMS system is a reliable and cost-effective technology that improves patient safety.
-
Jt Comm J Qual Patient Saf · Feb 2011
Trainees' perceptions of patient safety practices: recounting failures of supervision.
Ensuring that trainees receive appropriate clinical supervision is one proven method for improving patient safety outcomes. Yet, supervision is difficult to monitor, even more so during advanced levels of training. The manner in which trainees' perceived failures of supervision influenced patient safety practices across disciplines and various levels of training was investigated. ⋯ The findings of this study identify two primary sources of failures of supervision: supervisors' failure to respond to trainees' seeking of guidance or clinical support and trainees' failure to seek such support. The findings suggest that the learning environment's influence was sufficient to cause trainees to value their appearance to superiors more than safe patient care, suggesting that trainees' feelings may supersede patients' needs and jeopardize optimal treatment. The literature on the impact of disruptive behavior on patient care may also improve understanding of how intimidating and abusive behavior stifles effective communication and trainees' ability to provide optimal patient care. Improved supervision and communication within the medical hierarchy should not only create more productive learning environments but also improve patient safety.
-
Jt Comm J Qual Patient Saf · Jan 2011
Experiences of participants in a collaborative to develop performance measures for hospice care.
There has been increasing attention paid to quality assessment in hospice as the industry has grown and diversified. In response, policymakers have called for standardized approaches to monitoring hospice quality. The experiences of a set of hospices involved with the National Association for Home Care & Hospice (NAHC) Quality Assessment and Performance Improvement Collaborative, which was designed to test the use of a standardized patient symptom assessment tool as an exemplar of efforts to standardize symptom assessment in hospice, were examined. ⋯ The experiences of the participating hospices in the NAHC collaborative are intended to inform the design of future interorganizational learning efforts to promote quality assessment initiatives within hospice settings. Future hospice collaboratives should use multiple methods of communication to build a close participant network and be clear about collaborative goals and participant expectations and about the reciprocal relationship of the collaborative and the participants.
-
Jt Comm J Qual Patient Saf · Jan 2011
Designing an abstraction instrument: lessons from efforts to validate the AHRQ patient safety indicators.
The U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and other organizations have developed quality indicators based on hospital administrative data. Characteristics of effective abstraction instruments were identified for determining both the positive predictive value (PPV) of Patient Safety Indicators (PSIs) and the extent to which hospitals and clinicians could have prevented adverse events. ⋯ Designing medical record abstraction instruments for quality improvement research involves several potential pitfalls. Understanding how we addressed these challenges might help both investigators and users of outcome indicators to appreciate the strengths and limitations of outcome-based quality indicators and tools designed to validate or investigate such indicators within provider organizations.
-
Jt Comm J Qual Patient Saf · Jan 2011
Developing a policy for do not resuscitate orders within a framework of goals of care.
Discussions about DNR (do not resuscitate) orders or code status are common but can be difficult and may not lead to accurate understanding between clinicians and patients. These discussion are often isolated from the larger context of a patient's plan of care. Addressing patients goals of care, which provide a basic orientation for clinical and ethical decision making, may improve clinicians' understanding about patients' code-status preferences. ⋯ The DNR order policy represents an effort to translate conceptual analysis, empirical research, and clinical experience into hospital policy so that clinicians are encouraged to place code-status discussions within a larger, goal-oriented context. Using goals of care to guide decision making about DNR orders and other treatments should enhance the quality of patient care by improving the fit between the biomedical information we provide patients and the values our patients rely on to make their medical decisions.