Physician-Patient Alliance for Health & Safety Patient Safety Weekly Must Reads for August 26, 2016

CHICAGO, Aug. 26, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- The Physician-Patient Alliance for Health & Safety (PPAHS) announced the resumption of its weekly review of the trending topics in patient safety from PPAHS and around the world.

"Our readers tell us that our weekly roundup of must reads in patient safety are a valuable summary of the key articles and news," said Michael Wong, JD (Executive Director, PPAHS).

PPAHS is one of the leading voices in patient safety, and was ranked by Agilience as the #9 Patient Safety authority.

In the Patient Safety Weekly Must Reads for August 26, 2016, PPAHS highlighted the following five must reads:

#1 Patient Safety Must Read - 5 Key Learnings to Create a Culture of Patient Safety with Capnography

PPAHS interviewed Peggy Lange, RT (Director, Respiratory Care Department, St. Cloud Hospital) about a project that examined acute response team (ART) calls regarding patients who had received procedural or conscious sedation 24 hours prior to the event.

"The result is one of our most popular interviews to date with 7,200 YouTube views and growing!" said Mr. Wong.

To listen to the interview with Ms. Lange on YouTube, please click here.

#2 Patient Safety Must Read - Why All Medical Schools Must Incorporate Quality Improvement and Patient Safety Into Their Curriculums

This week, PPAHS featured a special guest post by Molly Siegel, a medical student at the Boston University School of Medicine, "Why All Medical Schools Must Incorporate Quality Improvement and Patient Safety into Their Curriculums."

Ms. Siegel's article makes an impassioned case for patient safety as a foundational teaching that starts in medical school and continues from there.  It's an increasingly topical subject, as the focus on hospital-acquired conditions by governmental institutions such as Medicare continues.

#3 Patient Safety Must Read - Opioids in Patient Safety

The Boston Herald reported that UMass Medical School researchers are testing a wearable, swallowable device that could help clinicians learn about how opioid addiction happens and guide prescription decision making.  This follows a growing trend for continuous electronic monitoring across the spectrum of psychologic parameters for wireless and wearable (or, in this case, ingestible!) technology. 

Preliminary results from a PPAHS survey of nurses found that nurses would like patient monitoring technology that is wearable and wireless. A full report on this survey is being prepared. If you would like to receive a copy, please complete PPAHS's contact form.

#4 Patient Safety Must Read - Culture & Patient Safety

FierceHealthcare.com reported on a new study from the University of Hong Kong identifying a culture of "speaking up" regarding medical errors and their causes as a critical behaviour of patient safety in hospitals.  This new study comes hot on the heels of a study published in June estimating that more than 250,000 could be attributed to medical error in the US alone (for PPAHS's thoughts on the issue, please click here).

In typical Harvard Business Review style, a recent article published on HBR.com breaks down advances in patient mortality reduction into 3 macro trends: technical advancements, standardizing procedures, and high reliability organizing.  The authors make a fascinating case for how the next large advances in patient safety will hinge on organizational behaviour in the clinical setting: shifting cultural and leadership models to better enable teams to identify patients in distress and 'rescue'. Read the full article here.

About Physician-Patient Alliance for Health & Safety

Physician-Patient Alliance for Health & Safety is a non-profit 501(c)(3) whose mission is to promote safer clinical practices and standards for patients through collaboration among healthcare experts, professionals, scientific researchers, and others, in order to improve healthcare delivery. For more information, please go to www.ppahs.org  

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SOURCE Physician-Patient Alliance for Health & Safety (PPAHS)

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