"Big Brother" may be keeping watch on patient safety practices
Patient Safety Monitor Alert
December 2, 2009
Maryland is using some of its funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to pay for "secret shoppers" to evaluate whether hospital staff members are washing their hands. A Rhode Island hospital is being forced to install video cameras by the state's department of health to monitor its operating rooms because several wrong-site surgeries have occurred there in the past few years. These examples may be part of a new trend of hospitals using surveillance as a technique to improve patient safety, reports American Medical News.
