Articles the Physician-Patient Alliance for Health & Safety (PPAHS) have been reading the week of July 16, 2018 suggest ideas to improve patient safety.
Ideas to Improve Patient Safety – Requiring Patients to Comply to Conduct Rules to Fight the Opioid Epidemic
The University of Tennessee Medical Center (UTMC) is now requiring patients admitted for medical treatments of drug-use-related infections to comply with new conduct rules. Dr. Jerry Epps, UTMC’s senior vice president and chief medical officer, explains:
“This is done first and foremost for patient safety. When patients are bringing in needles and drugs, and their friends are coming in with drugs, and they can shoot up in the bathroom and maybe kill themselves, I argue we’re doing our best to protect patients and team members from this dreadful problem.”
Ideas to Improve Patient Safety – Encourage COPD Patients to Regularly Exercise
Researchers at the University of Lincoln and the University of Oxford have found:
“Pulmonary rehabilitation — a patient-tailored approach combining exercise, education, and behavioral changes — can improve physical capacity, reduce shortness of breath, and enhance the quality of life of COPD patients.”
Arwel Jones, PhD, research fellow at the Lincoln Institute for Health in the U.K., who is the senior author of the study, discusses the difficulty that such a recommendation may be for COPD patients:
“Being physically active is extremely important for people with COPD, however, people with the disease find it difficult to remain physically active once they have finished pulmonary rehabilitation.”
Ideas to Improve Patient Safety – Utilize Capnography to Monitoring Patients Under Conscious Sedation
Referring to the clinical education podcast, “Capnography Monitoring During Conscious Sedation: A Must for Maintaining “Eyes and Ears,” Melicent Lavers-Sailly writes about the value of monitoring with capnography:
“Capnography, the measurement of carbon dioxide (CO2) in respiratory gases, has long been used to monitor the breathing of patients under anesthesia in the operating room. Now there is a growing recognition of its value as a reliable tool for monitoring patients under conscious sedation in ambulatory settings outside the OR.”
Ideas to Improve Patient Safety – Use Data to Help Make Better Healthcare Decisions & Treatment Choices
In the article, “The benefits of leveraging data and analytics in EMS,” Dr. Brent Myers makes the case for using date to help make better healthcare decisions and treatment choices. Rather than make decisions “either guessing or using their gut,” Dr. Myers encourages “leveraging data to make smarter decisions.”
He provides two examples where data has helped make smarter decisions:
“For example, stroke assessment and care have changed since the beginning of 2018, dramatically. This can’t be emphasized enough as the entire industry is still processing this information. Two recent studies – the DAWN Trial and the DEFUSE-3 Study – highlight findings that provide new guidelines for stroke patient assessment and transport. Specifically, these studies indicate the benefit of extending the treatment window to 16 or even 24 hours after the onset of symptoms for a subset of patients with large vessel occlusion acute ischemic stroke (LVO-AIS).
“While the nearest hospital may have been an appropriate destination in the past, the new research indicates transport to the nearest thrombectomy-capable or comprehensive stroke center may be preferred for those with evidence of LVO-AIS, even when it is not the nearest facility.”
Ideas to Improve Patient Safety – Reducing Psychological Distress May Decrease the Risk of COPD and Other Diseases
A research team led by Catharine Gale, PhD, a professor at the University of Edinburgh and at MRC Lifecourse Epidemiology Unit, University of Southampton, reviewed the clinical records of 16,485 individuals over a three-year period and found that psychological distress may increase the risk of COPD and other diseases:
“The study showed that, compared with people who had no symptoms of psychological distress, those with low levels of distress had a 57% increased chance of having arthritis and those with moderate distress levels had a 72% increased chance. A similar pattern was reported regarding cardiovascular diseases, with low distress levels increasing the risk by 46% and moderate levels by 77%.”