Patient Safety Monitor

Briefings on Patient Safety

As part of your Patient Safety Monitor membership, you'll receive Briefings on Patient Safety. In this 12-page monthly newsletter, discover the regulatory news, best practices, and staff training ideas you need to successfully create a culture of patient safety in your facility. Don't miss another issue. Become a member of Patient Safety Monitor today!

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Issue 3, March 1, 2005 - VIEW THE FULL ISSUE

• NPSGs: What the JCAHO may have in store for hospitals in 2006

  In late January, the JCAHO re leased its proposed 2006 National Patient Safety Goals for field...

• Hospital takes a second glance at improving falls prevention

  Assessing and addressing patients' risks for falls is a 2005 National Patient Safety Goal, but some...

• Sneak a peek at surveyors' scoring guidelines for NPSGs 2B and &A

  Confused about how surveyors will score your hospital's compliance with the National Patient Safety...

• In pursuit of patient safety: Customized survey education preps staff

  Before its last announced JCAHO survey, Saint Luke's Hospital in Kansas City , MO , conducted a...

Issue 12, December 1, 2005 - VIEW THE FULL ISSUE

• Use efficiency training before you adopt a bar coding system

  The future is now for bar coding, but it takes work to prepare your organization to use this new...

• Prohibited abbreviation success takes time and effort

  Try various methods to find success at your hospital The National Patient Safety Goal on...

• Keeping patients first in Massachusetts

  The Massachusetts Hospital Association’s (MHA) Patients First campaign offers guidelines for...

• Crew resource management: The flight plan for lasting change in patient safety

  Although the traveling public doesn’t realize it, the pilots who fly us safely to our...

Issue 11, November 1, 2005 - VIEW THE FULL ISSUE

• Answers to 11 burning questions about the 2006 NPSGs

  The JCAHO's 2006 National Patient Safety Goals take effect in less than a month. Hospitals are...

• Regional nodes to help with IHI 100,000 Lives campaign

  The Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) kicked off a nationwide bus tour on September 26 to...

• New patient safety act: Sharing data is key

  The consensus among professionals in the healthcare quality field is that the Patient Safety and...

• Bar coding basics to improve patient care

  Assess the need and motivation to install a bar code-enabled point of care (BPOC). It is valuable...

• Standards changes announced during JCAHO Executive Briefing

  Assessing a culture of safety, using technology such as bar coding to identify patients, and...

Issue 10, October 1, 2005 - VIEW THE FULL ISSUE

• Hand-offs: Use standardized approach

  Patient hand-offs are communication-based exchanges that require careful thought and questioning...

• When you're sorry, say so

  Who says practicing medicine means never having to say you're sorry? There's a growing movement...

• Close doesn't cut it when it comes to safety

  Making a commitment to patient safety has to be an absolute process that leads to decisive action...

• Wristbands designed to prevent surgical errors

  Marking the surgical site is a requirement in the JCAHO's Universal Protocol on wrong-site/-patient...

Issue 9, September 1, 2005 - VIEW THE FULL ISSUE

• Prevent patient falls through education, leaves

  Sometimes preventing patient falls requires a hospital to turn over a new leaf. At Syracuse (NY...

• Make medication reconciliation a patient's duty

  Universal medication form gives patients the tools to prevent medication errors Trying to keep...

• Improve ED flow at triage and registration

  Bedside registration, testing keys to success Expediting triage and registration are two ways to...

Issue 8, August 1, 2005 - VIEW THE FULL ISSUE

• Patient safety goes to Congress

  The House Energy and Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Health held a hearing June 9 to learn how...

• New Web site provides multilingual medical forms for patients

  Although an interpreter is an invaluable tool for hospitals when working with non-English speakers...

• Medication reconciliation: Frequently asked questions

  There's no doubt you'll have hundreds of questions as you implement and tweak your medication...

• Increasing patient safety through simulation

  Simulation training has reached a new level at Riverside Methodist Hospital in Columbus, OH...

Issue 7, July 1, 2005 - VIEW THE FULL ISSUE

• JCAHO announces 2006 National Patient Safety Goals

  The JCAHO released its annual list of goals for each accreditation program on May 31. For...

• NPSF: There are no excuses for ignoring patient safety

  Attendees of the seventh annual National Patient Safety Foundation (NPSF) Congress in Orlando, FL...

• Walkrounds can lead to patient safety success

  Leadership talking about patient safety can set a tone for all hospital staff Executive...

• Rethink your facility’s procedures to help improve ICU safety

  Improving safety in the intensive care unit (ICU) is a critical but challenging goal. During the...

Issue 6, June 1, 2005 - VIEW THE FULL ISSUE

• Library-hospital pairing empowers patients, improves safety

  When patients arrive in a hospital, especially for the first time, they often feel scared...

• An Illinois hospital system’s med reconciliation efforts a success

  Improving how hospitals report a patient’s medication requirements across departments and...

• Create a centralized notebook as a staff resource for JCAHO surveys

  Preparing for a JCAHO survey is hard enough, but that task becomes a real burden when the person...

• JCAHO strikes proposed insulin goal

  Culture of safety also scrapped this year, but both remain important JCAHO has tabled two...

Issue 5, May 1, 2005 - VIEW THE FULL ISSUE - VIEW THE FULL ISSUE

• Ten ways to save 100,000 lives

  Ten ways to save 100,000 lives The Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) launched in...

• Involve patients in their care to create an additional safety net

  Patients who are more involved in their care get better results, according to the Agency for...

• Train staff to prevent outpatient falls

  The JCAHO's National Patient Safety Goal on preventing falls applies to outpatient areas of...

• Reducing infections is in patients' hands

  Reducing infections is in patients' hands You're a healthcare worker at Ingham Regional Medical...

Issue 4, April 1, 2005 - VIEW THE FULL ISSUE

• Concrete ways to create, measure your hospital's culture of safety

  One of the JCAHO's proposed 2006 National Patient Safety Goals would require hospitals to create...

• Eight steps to safer care

  Conducting a Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) is a great way to improve patient safety-and...

• Magnet: Empowering nurses to provide safer care

  It makes sense that hospitals in which nurses feel empowered in their roles as integral parts of...

• Use video-based storytelling to drive patient safety and cultural change

  Data collection is one major factor for driving change in hospitals, but are numbers and charts...

Issue 2, February 1, 2005 - VIEW THE FULL ISSUE

• Avoid patient safety risks associated with PCA pumps

  The latest JCAHO Sentinel Event Alert, issued in December 2004, stresses the importance of...

• Prepare your staff for National Patient Safety Awareness Week

  Mark your calendar: March 6-12 is National Patient Safety Awareness Week. The best way to...

• Four ways to prevent errors due to shift changes

  When the Accreditation Council on Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) mandated in July 2003 that...

Issue 1, January 1, 2005 - VIEW THE FULL ISSUE

• Practice makes perfect: Extensive preparation leads to ideal survey

  Obtaining a perfect survey score is not an easy feat. But with extensive preparation and a staff...

• Define your culture: Survey evaluates patient safety

  A new tool from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) will allow hospitals to...

• Four tips for critical test result read backs

  In keeping with the changes made to the JCAHO National Patient Safety Goal to improve the accuracy...

Issue 9, September 1, 2005

• Standardize approach to reduce ADEs

  Setting triggers, collecting data, and choosing interventions Is it possible to reduce adverse...