Thank you Caregiver Action Network for submitting this infograph, “10 Tips for Family Caregivers”.
Category: Patient Safety
Infograph: 5 Questions to Ask about your Medications
Patients are at high risk of fragmented care, adverse drug events, and medication errors during transitions of care. Ensuring safe medication transitions is complex. It requires patients to be an active partner in their health to ensure that they have the information they need to use their medications safely.
Continue reading “Infograph: 5 Questions to Ask about your Medications”
What doctors can do to prevent medical errors during transfer of care
In this joint article, Canadian Patient Safety Institute and PPAHS discuss what doctors can do to prevent medical errors during transfer of care.
Co-authored by Stephen Routledge, MPH, Patient Safety Improvement Lead, Canadian Patient Safety Institute and Michael Wong, JD, Founder and Executive Director, Physician-Patient Alliance for Health & Safety
How can clinicians keep patients safe during critical transition of care? As patients’ conditions change, they move to different hospital floors, care teams and, eventually, leave the hospital. During those moments, patients are at high risk of fragmented care, adverse drug events and medication errors.
Continue reading “What doctors can do to prevent medical errors during transfer of care”
Health data interoperability is a patient safety issue
This article is a submission by Tim Blake, Managing Director of Semantic Consulting. He can be found on Twitter (@timblake1978). You can join PPAHS’ ongoing efforts to find and disseminate best practices in patient safety by submitting an article here.
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Sharing data in healthcare is hard. Way harder than it should be.
The lack of willingness on the part of some healthcare providers and health IT vendors to safely and easily share patient health information with patients and other health providers is an unacceptable position in our increasingly digital age. Continue reading “Health data interoperability is a patient safety issue”
Obstetric Malpractice Shapes The Way Doctors Practice – But It Can Be Prevented
The following is an excerpt of an article on obstetric malpractice co-authored by Angela W. Russell, Partner, Wilson Elser Moskowitz Edelman & Dicker LLP and Michael Wong, JD, Executive Director of Physician-Patient Alliance for Health & Safety (PPAHS). It first appeared on Healthcare Business Today on July 28, 2017. Read the full article here.
Accidents can happen.
In the case of hospital care, the stakes are high, with errors potentially resulting in serious adverse events or even death. In the field of obstetrics & gynecology, these incidences can have a deeply personal impact, affecting the lives of mother, baby, family, and attending clinicians. It’s not surprising, then, that in the most catastrophic cases, the costs of obstetric malpractice suits can be astronomical. Continue reading “Obstetric Malpractice Shapes The Way Doctors Practice – But It Can Be Prevented”
Are Patients Receiving Opioids Safer Today Than 6 Years Ago?
Six years ago on July 27, 2011, I posted the first article on a free WordPress blog for the Physician-Patient Alliance for Health & Safety. It was titled “Is it possible to survive 96-minutes without a heart beat?”. Howard Snitzer, a man who suffered a heart attack survived after two volunteer paramedics responded and began a 96-minute CPR marathon. The ordeal involved 20 others, who took turns pumping his chest. This life-saving feat was only possible with the use of capnography readings, which told the volunteer paramedics that Howard was still alive and that they needed to continue their efforts.
Little would I know that that article would lead to an invitation by the University of Notre Dame and the beginnings of a 6-year friendship with the parents of Amanda Abbiehl. Amanda was admitted to hospital for “severe strep throat.” Continue reading “Are Patients Receiving Opioids Safer Today Than 6 Years Ago?”
3 Consumer Resources for Opioid Safety
By Sean Power
Opioids–drugs such as oxycontin, vicodin, percocet, and fentanyl–have recently garnered mainstream attention as more people become dependent and addicted to the painkiller in epidemic proportions. Perhaps it is because 1 in 5 become long-term users of opioids with a 10-day supply; perhaps because sales of prescription opioids in the U.S. nearly quadrupled from 1999 to 2014; or, perhaps simply because chronic opioid use often begins with opioid usage for acute (short-term) pain–whatever the reason, the opioid epidemic is front and centre in public health discourse. Continue reading “3 Consumer Resources for Opioid Safety”
The Vital Role Nurses Play in Patient Care
Written by Michael Wong, JD, Founder & Executive Director of PPAHS
As founder and executive director PPAHS, when I speak at conferences about the Physician-Patient Alliance for Health & Safety support for continuous electronic monitoring of patients receiving opioids, I am often asked two questions:
- Is PPAHS suggesting or recommending that technology replace nurses?
- Why has continuous monitoring been so slow to be adopted by hospitals?
Continue reading “The Vital Role Nurses Play in Patient Care”
An Interview With The Creator Of PatientAider
Mari Miceli, who developed the PatientAider application, discusses why she developed the application to help patients, families and their advocates while in hospital educate themselves about patient safety.
By Michael Wong, JD (founder and executive director, the Physician-Patient Alliance for Health & Safety)
Often times, as a patient, the hospital and its staff can be a bewildering and seemingly unfriendly environment; processes, procedures, and even the language spoken can truly be confusing. In a recent NY Times article, “In the Hospital, a Degrading Shift From Person to Patient”, Benedict Carey writes:
Entering the medical system, whether a hospital, a nursing home or a clinic, is often degrading… at many others the small courtesies that help lubricate and dignify civil society are neglected precisely when they are needed most, when people are feeling acutely cut off from others and betrayed by their own bodies.
To help navigate this world of hospitals and healthcare, I recently spoke with Mari Miceli. Mari has worked over 15 years as a registered nurse after graduating from the University of Massachusetts, Lowell with a BS in Nursing and the University of Illinois with a BFA. in Industrial Design. She is also a Regional Network Chair, a volunteer position at the Patient Safety Movement Foundation. Continue reading “An Interview With The Creator Of PatientAider”
Reducing Obstetric Malpractice Claims Starts With Training, Communication, and Culture
Medical malpractice claims, usually related to death or major injury, represent 69.6% of inpatient claims and 63.7% of outpatient claims. To help reduce medical malpractice, here are 5 key steps to minimizing exposure to medical malpractice litigation and improving patient safety & health outcomes
By Michael Wong, JD (Founder and Executive Director, Physician-Patient Alliance for Health & Safety).
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Can “perfect care” exist in the clinical setting? This is one of the questions that was asked at a recent conference that I spoke at with Bruce Pastner, MD, JD (Vice-Chair, Patient Safety & Quality, Inova Fairfax Women’s Hospital).
It’s a utopic vision for patient safety that we all strive for. But the unfortunate reality of healthcare today is that bad outcomes can happen; this is sadly true in practices regarded as higher-risk, such as obstetrics. Not all terrible events leading to death or major injury are predictable, preventable, or even treatable. What clinicians can do, however, is to focus on identifying the most preventable incidents and prepare for them. Continue reading “Reducing Obstetric Malpractice Claims Starts With Training, Communication, and Culture”