Promoting patient safety and improving the quality of patient care
Tag: PATIENT MONITORING
The Physician-Patient Alliance for Health & Safety (PPAHS) announced that it intends to host a Guide to Patient Monitoring, Improved Patient Safety and Outcomes.
PPAHS has developed a standard set of questions and provided these questions to all manufacturers of patient monitoring equipment of which PPAHS is aware. The Guide will contain answers by the medical affairs department of manufacturers of patient monitoring devices.
The Physician-Patient Alliance for Health & Safety (PPAHS) is pleased to announce that the Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) webinar on respiratory compromise prevention, recognition and intervention is now available on the PPAHS YouTube Channel.
Nursing recommendations from ARIN and AORN encouraged Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre to monitor with capnography patients undergoing procedural sedation.
In a podcast with the Physician-Physician Alliance for Health Safety, Barbara McArthur, RN, BScN, CPN(C), an advanced practice nurse at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto, Canada, discussed why Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre decided to monitor with capnography.
Continue reading “Nursing Recommendations on How Capnography Improves Patient Safety”
Editor’s Note: This research was presented as a poster at the 2017 ANCC National Magnet Conference.
By Eric Griffin MSN, RN, CEN (Magnet Program Director, Baystate Medical Center) and Laura Bolella MSN, RN (Assistant Nurse Manager, Baystate Medical Center)
For over a hundred years nurses have monitored the same vital signs. Unfortunately these vital signs can be slow to change, inaccurate, and misleading. Although there have been modern advances in physiological monitoring devices, their acceptance has been limited. Pulse oximetry developed in the early 1970’s is extremely useful in measuring oxygenation, although it has limitations related to the following factors: poor signal strength, fingernail polish, anemia, patient motion, calloused skin, hypoperfusion, time lag, and vasoconstriction.
Despite the focus on appropriate use of opioids for pain management, ECRI Institute Patient Safety Organization (PSO) found that there are many hospitals that continue to experience opioid-related adverse events and deaths. To help prevent further patient harms and deaths, PSO conducted a deep dive analysis of adverse events related to opioids in the acute care setting.
This week even the White House took notice of the opioid epidemic, declaring opioid abuse a national public health emergency. However, the opioid epidemic was recognized as early as the 1990s, when doctors became increasingly aware of the burdens of pain.
But, saying there is a problem – the opioid epidemic has long been recognized – and doing something about it, are two completely different things.
To help do something about it, we offer 7 must reads for beating the opioid epidemic:
Continue reading “7 Must Reads for Beating the Opioid Epidemic”
Oct 26 update – The full podcast “Is Respiratory Compromise The New ‘Sepsis’?” can now be viewed at https://youtu.be/xmOpSZaBi1w. We had tried to have YouTube correct the previously upload which only played for 4 minutes, but they were unable to do that and so we have been forced to re-upload the podcast. We apologize again for any inconvenience that this may have caused you.
Oct 23 update – the podcast on YouTube is unfortunately only playing about 4 minutes of the more than 18 minute interview. We are working with YouTube to have this fixed as soon as possible. When this is fixed, we will post another update on this post. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you.
The Physician-Patient Alliance for Health & Safety is pleased to announce the release of a clinical education podcast with Jeffrey Vender, MD.
Jeffrey S. Vender, MD is Clinical Professor at the University Of Chicago, Pritzker School of Medicine. He is also Chairman of the clinical advisory committee to the Respiratory Compromise Institute.
#RespiratoryCompromise is The New “#Sepsis”? #patientsafety Click To Tweet Continue reading “Is Respiratory Compromise The New “Sepsis”? An Interview with Jeffrey Vender, MD”
A recent study published in The New England Journal of Medicine concludes that there are too many patient deaths within 30 days of major surgery and many of these are preventable.
Dr. P.J. Devereaux, principal investigator, observes:
Almost no one now dies in the operating room or recovery room, but after surgery there is still an appreciable death rate.
Continue reading “Death After Surgery – Weekly Must Reads in Patient Safety (Dec 11, 2015)”
The Physician-Patient Alliance for Health & Safety (PPAHS) wishes all of you a happy and safe Thanksgiving!
Although physiologic threshold monitoring works great in the OR, it is unreliable on post-surgical floors
By J. Paul Curry, MD (anesthesiologist)
Up to 750,000 cardiopulmonary arrests occur in hospitals every year in the United States. According to a review in Intensive Care Medicine, only 15 to 20 percent of these patients will survive.
Tragically, the survival rate following in-hospital cardiopulmonary resuscitation has changed little in the last 40 years, even though much has been done to improve respiratory monitoring and the deployment of competent resuscitation. One study of 139 in-hospital deaths showed that 62 percent could have been prevented if deterioration had been detected earlier, and nearly half (48 percent) of these patients had clear clinical signs of deterioration that went unnoticed. Continue reading “Improving the Safety of Post-Surgical Care”