If we look to EHRs to address existing gaps in quality of care, it is important to provide primary care physicians in small practices with the necessary financial support and training in quality improvement so that they can successfully make the transition to EHRs, says this column at MedPageToday.com. Electronic health records are an integral part of virtually every ongoing quality improvement initiative, at both the health system and individual practitioner level, notes columnist David B. Nash, MD.
A new study finds that patients prefer to challenge nurses rather than doctors about safety issues related to their care, and women are far more prepared to speak up than men. The findings are based on a survey assessing the factors influencing patients' willingness to ask healthcare professionals questions related to safety. The results showed that patients were far more likely to ask factual questions of all healthcare professionals than they were to pose questions that might be perceived as challenging clinical abilities.
Investigators in the Netherlands have trialed methods used by forensic scientists at crime scenes to highlight infection risks in their hospital. Researchers used Luminol, a chemical used by crime scene investigators, to detect traces of blood in their haemodialysis unit. Luminol reacts with microscopic amounts of blood to produce bright blue luminescence to allow investigators to track invisible blood splashes in the environment The group of researchers suggests that Luminol could be used as part of a hospital infection control regimen, in order to highlight risks associated with the contamination of the hospital environment with blood.
Mercy Health System, which serves southern Wisconsin and northern Illinois, has won the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. Mercy Health was one of the two healthcare systems among the five winners this year, and Mercy representatives say the award is the culmination of a roughly seven-year effort. The results of the effort can be seen in how Mercy Health ranks in benchmarks. The system lowered infection rates from catheters to 0.5%, compared with the best-practice benchmark of 1.6%; lowered mortality rates for pneumonia to 1.2%, significantly below the best-practice benchmark of 4%; and has a total mortality rate of 2.3% that matches the rate of the top 15% of hospitals nationwide.
Hospitals that perform fewer cardiac bypass operations don't have more deaths following the procedure than hospitals that handle more of the procedures, according to a study. Conventional wisdom has assumed that hospitals that do more cardiac bypass operations have better results, with fewer patient deaths. For the study, researchers collected data on 108,087,386 people admitted to U.S. hospitals from 1988 to 2003. The authors say the findings show that using death rates after cardiac bypass surgery may no longer be an accurate gauge of the quality of care.
A voluntary affiliation of 39 hospitals in five San Francisco Bay Area counties has announced that its members reduced the number of two major types of hospital infections dramatically between April 2006 and the end of 2007, saving an estimated 194 lives in the process. During the 21-month period, 34 of the 39 hospitals in the group prevented an estimated 60 percent of the cases of ventilator-associated pneumonia, and an estimated 66 percent of cases of central line-associated bloodstream infections. The 120 lives saved by reducing ventilator-related infections saved an estimated $1.2 million, and the 74 lives saved by reducing central line-related infections saved an estimated $2.7 million, according to the collaborative.