PPAHS
PPAHS
Physician-Patient Alliance for Health & Safety is a national advocacy force for addressing patient health and safety priorities that are shared by patients, physicians, regulators and industry.
“In practice, checklists serve as a mental reminder of critical steps that we may or may not remember. Therefore, the value of a checklist with regards to PCAs would be to remind us/double check a critical step in the process.”
Dr. Julius Cuong Pham, Department of Emergency Medicine, Department of Anesthesia and Critical Care Medicine, Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
“One action that VHA has taken to address this high error incident rate is to use a PCA pump that has an integrated end tidal CO2 monitor or capnograph. A capnograph measures in real-time the adequacy of ventilation. Using this technology could prevent more than 60 percent of adverse events related to PCA pumps.
“In addition, we developed a standard protocol that looks at the other key issues that need to be addressed for safe use of PCA pumps: human factors (communication, training, fatigue and scheduling); the environment and equipment, rules, policies and procedures, and barriers and controls.”