10 Patient Safety Tips for Hospitals

This article was created to help improve hospital safety. I thought that number 3, limit shifts for hospital staff, if possible, was interesting because involves cut back in employees hours. Many medical errors occur because the patients are tired and over-worked. This article states that at some Boston hospital(s) there has been a decreased by 36% in medical errors just by eliminating employees work load. Number 9, limit urinary catheter use to 3 days, was educational to me because I didn’t know that there are software programs available that will notify the physician when it is time for a change. By having computer-based software for reminders, the hospital decreased its rate in urinary tract infections from patients with catheter. Number 5, prevent central line-related bloodstream infections, was another education tip for me. The five evidence-based procedures includes hand-washing, using full-barrier precautions during the insertion of central venous catheters, cleaning the skin with chlorhexidine, avoiding the femoral site, and removing unnecessary catheters has reduced deadly infections to zero in a study perform in small and large hospitals. I just believe that that’s remarkable to reduce a rate of infection down to zero. This article talks about a lot of ways to better and improve your hospital but the one that I found to be the best and that will eliminate a lot of medical errors is number 2, build teamwork. A hospital cannot function well if there isn’t teamwork. All staff needs to come together, communicate, listen, and most importantly pay attention to everybody and everything and the flow should go a lot smoother. TeamSTEPPS was developed just to help improve teamwork within a facility.

10 Patient Safety Tips for Hospitals http://www.ahrq.gov/qual/10tips.htm

Breaking the Code

Delinquent Medical Records

One of the biggest difficulties within all healthcare facilities is keeping down the delinquent medical records rate. This article gives you about a solutions that the University of Utah HIM division put together to help them stay above water, when it comes down to meeting the standard rates. One of their approaches that interested me the most was the direct financial incentive. This approach either pays you cash or deducts cash from you based on how many delinquent rate charts you complete. The residents within the facility are rewarded $5 for every chart dictated within 24 hours of discharge/procedures and penalize $10 for every delinquent chart over seven days. Another method that I found interesting was the strictness of the medical chief of staff. The chief uses his authority to suspend admitting privileges of physician(s) who have delinquents chart out at 22 days, as opposed to the standard rule of 30 days. The final method that caught my eye was the use of the students in the work-study program. They use a software system to match the student that will be beneficial to them in maintaining documents and filing them. I believe that if more hospitals incorporate some of the methods that the University of Utah HIM division has developed that they would see improvement within their facility delinquent rate.


Military Medical/NBC Technology Online Archives: Breaking the Code
http://www.military-medical-technology.com/article.cfm?DocID=178