There is a possibility that unsafe procedures at the Endoscopy Center of Southern Nevada--procedures that have placed 40,000 people at risk for three potentially fatal blood diseases--could have been discovered during scheduled state inspections. The Nevada agency in charge of inspecting medical facilities--the Nevada State Health Division's Licensure and Certification Bureau--issued a memo in 2001 promising complete inspections every three years. But the agency did not follow its own schedule.
Nurses are on the front lines of a battle Connecticut hospitals are waging against multiple drug-resistant organisms. In February, the Connecticut Hospital Association held a symposium on MDROs, kicking off a collaborative effort that is bound to change the lives of nurses and patients in the state's hospitals, hopefully for the better. Some 30 of the state's acute-care and long-term care hospitals are participating and have agreed to share best practices for preventing MDROs through a password-protected website, a dedicated listserv, and frequent conference calls to monitor progress.
Maryland hospital safety experts are looking at a new standard for many preventive infections and mishaps that can harm the most vulnerable patients: zero. The Maryland Health Care Commission is putting a framework in place for the public to see specific infection and other mishap rates by hospital and should begin reporting MRSA infections by the end of this year.
A British hospital is banning neck ties and encouraging its employees to leave the long sleeve shirts at home in an effort to curb MRSA. Doctors seem to be taking the new rules well. One doctor was quoted as saying, "If you look at the state of many doctors' ties, they probably need a wash, so it should reduce infections."
The National Patient Safety Foundation has proposed a Universal Patient Compact to establish a mutual covenant between healthcare providers and their patients. The compact will describe the agreed upon commitments that both patients and physicians must make to make sure a patient has a quality healthcare experience.
A study published in the February 25 edition of the Archives of Internal Medicine says that mandatory reporting of hospital quality measures has led to a high rate of misdiagnosis among pneumonia patients.