New Hampshire has enlisted all of its hospitals and surgery centers in a hand-washing campaign called High Five for a Healthy New Hampshire. The goal is to reduce patient infections that could be easily prevented with hand hygeine. The campaign educates medical staff about the importance of hand hygiene, and places hand cleansers and sanitizers in convenient places.
The National Patient Safety Foundation has awarded $200,000 in grants to fund two studies. One will examine how interruptions in the emergency room affect patient care. The other will collect data from medical events and near-miss reports to develop an error-solutions framework.
Federal government figures show a 200% increase in the number of hospital patients infected with Clostridium difficile, or C. difficile, from 2000 to 2005. The infection, which can be carried on hands and surfaces, can cause deadly diarrhea and blood poisoning.
Loyola University Hospital has purchased a $1.5 million robot that the pharmacy will use to help distribute medication to patients. The robot is designed to eliminate the life-threatening medication errors caused by humans.
North Carolina has cited a federal investigation involving the death of a 76-year-old man at a Franklin Regional Medical Center as one reason its request to move from the center of Franklin County to its frontier with Wake County was denied. A state report said the federal investigation was proof that Franklin Regional had not provided a past record of quality care. In March, CMS reported on elective surgical procedures at the hospital, and threatened to pull federal funding to treat poor and elderly patients at Franklin Regional as a result.
Many in Tarrant County, TX, lack health insurance. As a result, they come to the taxpayer-supported Tarrant County Hospital District for help that other local healthcare facilities can't or won't provide. But they often encounter barriers such as unbearable delays, red tape, bungling and jammed facilities. Bottlenecks permeate the health network at every level, and patients often wait weeks to get a doctor's appointment and months for some specialists. When appointment time finally arrives, patients usually wait for hours waiting to see the doctor.