Happy Holidays!
We’d like to wish you a safe and healthy 2017.
As we prepare for 2017, we reflect back on the top 10 articles from 2016.
Opioid Safety
- Physicians on Surgeon General’s Letter on Opioid Epidemic: Survey Results. The Surgeon General issued an Open Letter on the Opioid Epidemic. We looked into how clinicians and other patient safety experts felt about it.
- The U.S. Opioid Epidemic In Numbers. Related, Advance for Nurses generated an infographic summarizing your responses.
- 12 Years of Event-Free Opioid Use. In 2016, St. Joseph’s/Candler Health System celebrated 12 years free from Serious Adverse Events related to Opioid-Induced Respiratory Depression since the implementation of its continuous monitoring program.
Alarm Safety
- 3 Ways to Make Opioids Safer. Peggy Lange, RT, Director of the Respiratory Care Department at St. Cloud Hospital, discussed the importance of setting alarm thresholds for each patient in this podcast.
- Drawn Curtains, Muted Alarms, And Diverted Attention Lead To Tragedy In The Postanesthesia Care Unit. Sadly, alarms on the monitoring equipment used to alert healthcare professionals to changes in the patient’s cardiac and respiratory status were muted in one tragic death of a 17-year-old.
- A New Tool to Predict Respiratory Failure: An Interview with Hiroshi Morimatsu, MD, Ph.D. Could this multi-parameter indicator help counter alarm fatigue?
Bloot Clots Safety
- New PPAHS Campaign Targeting Orthopedic Venous Thromboembolism. VTE is the third-most prevalent reason for readmission after surgery, and about 1 million hip and knee replacement surgeries happen each year in the U.S.
- Physician-Patient Alliance Partners with World Thrombosis Day. As part of our new campaign, we partnered with World Thrombosis Day in 2016. Looking forward to working together in 2017.
- Why Bundled Payments for Joint Replacement May Be Risky for Patients. We took a look at whether patients are receiving evidence-based or reimbursement-based care under the Bundled Payments model.
Special Mention
- Why All Medical Schools Must Incorporate Quality Improvement and Patient Safety into Their Curriculums. This position by Molly Siegel generated plenty of engagement on the Twittersphere and is a theme that cuts across all of our priority areas.