Joint Commission journal on quality and patient safety / Joint Commission Resources
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DHMC's clinical triggers program is a promising approach that addresses an unmet patient need. We have seen dramatic reductions in our non-ICU cardiopulmonary arrest rates, along with our ICU bounceback rates. In the context of our hospital, this program aligns well with our teaching mission while maximizing the resources that are currently available. ⋯ Although our study does not alter the weight of evidence in the literature, it does offer a new focus on the afferent limb by clarifying the expectations of the primary responders. This was the essence of the deficiency in the aforementioned case study. Death is the natural, albeit sad, endpoint of all lives; the overarching goal of DHMC's clinical triggers system is to prevent the premature death of a hospitalized patient and thereby improve patient safety.
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Jt Comm J Qual Patient Saf · Mar 2009
Clinical triggers or rapid response teams: does the emperor need "new" clothes?
Essential to any rapid response system is certainty regarding its ability to provide an immediate and appropriate response to calls for help.
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Jt Comm J Qual Patient Saf · Jan 2009
Implementing a patient safety and quality program across two merged pediatric institutions.
Academic centers are among the health care organizations that have used consolidation as a strategy to improve efficiency and reduce costs. In 1997, the New York Hospital and The Presbyterian Hospital underwent a full-asset merger to become New York City's largest medical center, known as the New York-Presbyterian Hospital (NYPH). In 2006, recognition of the challenges of the Children's Service Line at NYPH led to the formation of a Patient Safety and Quality Program to deliver consistently safe and effective health care. ⋯ Developing a pediatric safety and quality program across two campuses has been challenging but has led to important improvements at both organizations.
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Jt Comm J Qual Patient Saf · Jan 2009
Using the American Heart Association's National Registry of Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation for performance improvement.
Data suggest that the overall quality of inhospital resuscitation is suboptimal and contributes to poor patient outcomes. In 2000 the American Heart Association created the National Registry of Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (NRCPR) as an evidence-based hospital safety program. Participating hospitals voluntarily join the registry and pay an annual fee that includes data support and report generation. The primary purpose of NRCPR is to support local facility efforts in practice management and performance improvement (PI). ⋯ NRCPR is used as both a local PI tool as well as a source of data that scientists are analyzing to further the understanding of inhospital resuscitation processes and outcomes. Over time, researchers have recognized the need to refine the Chain of Survival to reflect the unique aspects of inhospital resuscitation. A rapid response system provides a new link at the beginning, and postresuscitation care provides a new link at the end of the Chain of Survival.
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Jt Comm J Qual Patient Saf · Jan 2009
Multicenter StudyDisclosing errors to patients: perspectives of registered nurses.
Disclosure of medical errors has been conceptualized as occurring primarily in the physician-patient dyad. Yet, health care is delivered by interprofessional teams, in which nurses share in the culpability for errors, and hence, in responsibility for disclosure. This study explored nurses' perspectives on disclosure of errors to patients and the organizational factors that influence disclosure. ⋯ Nurses conceived of the disclosure process as a team event occurring in the context of a complex health care system rather than as a physician-patient conversation. Nurses felt excluded from these discussions, resulting in their use of ethically questionable communication strategies. The findings underscore the need for organizations to adopt a team disclosure process. Health care organizations that integrate the entire health care team into the disclosure process will likely improve the quality of error disclosure.