Promoting patient safety and improving the quality of patient care
Tag: alarm fatigue
Two patient deaths – one from alarm fatigue and one from a blood clot – make us stop and ask, “Are we doing enough to prevent patient deaths?
Death from Blood Clots
The Evening Post recently reported:
A teenage mother-to-be and her unborn baby were tragically killed by a DVT blood clot – just hours after finding out she was expecting a healthy boy.
Scarlett Holyoake, 18, was six months pregnant when she suddenly died from deep vein thrombosis after collapsing in her home.
The Joint Commission (TJC) has made better alarm management a national patient safety goal. In Sentinel Event Alert #50 “Medical device alarm safety in hospitals”, TJC has stated:
Continue reading “7 Expected Practice and Nursing Actions to Reduce Alarm Fatigue”
Will your hospital be compliant with The Joint Commission’s National Patient Safety Goal? In issuing this Goal, The Joint Commission stated:
In Phase II (beginning January 2016), hospitals will be expected to develop and implement specific components of policies and procedures. Education of those in the organization about alarm system management will also be required in January 2016.
Continue reading “Is Your Hospital Compliant with Joint Commission Requirements?”
A recent survey of nurses has found that continuous patient monitoring of patient vital signs may not only improve health and safety, but may be done without associated alarm fatigue.
Terri Watkins MSN, Lynn Whisman BSN, MBA, FACHE and Pamela Booker MSN, CNOR, all clinicians from LifePoint Health, conducted a survey to assess nursing experience with continuous patient monitoring in two medical/surgical units – a 49-bed acute care facility in Utah and a 175-bed full-service hospital in Alabama.
We have plenty of patient safety articles to share with you this week. From advice for nurses on how to educate patients about opioid diversion to tips for preventing medical errors in long-term care, audiences across the health care spectrum will benefit from some weekend reading.
Continue reading “Weekly Must-Reads in Patient Safety and Health Care (November 6, 2015) – When False Alarms Pollute Intensive Care”
Before focusing on tips to defeat alarm fatigue and for making anesthesia safer for labor and surgery, three patient stories highlight the need for assessing patients for risk of venous thromboembolism: Continue reading “Weekly Must Reads in Patient Safety (May 15, 2015)”
Three themes for this week’s must reads:
Continue reading “Weekly Must Reads in Patient Safety (Apr 24, 2015)”
ECRI Institute has released its second annual Top 10 Patient Safety Concerns for Healthcare Organizations list to help organizations determine where to direct their efforts: Continue reading “Weekly Must Reads in Patient Safety (Apr 10, 2015)”
Our must reads for this week focus on 5 key tips, which if followed, could save a life.
As well, if you tweet about patient safety, a big “thank you” – see if your name appears below in our retweet shout outs. Continue reading “Weekly Must Reads in Patient Safety (Apr 3, 2015)”
While the Patient Safety, Science & Technology Summit called for “orders of magnitude” change, the story of Amber Scott, a mother who slipped into a coma during delivery, illuminates why improving safety for even a single person matters. Continue reading “Weekly Must Reads in Patient Safety (Feb 6, 2015)”