Spurring a movement for patient and family-centered care

Physician
October 14, 2014

Earlier this year, our hospital staff was weighing a new 24/7 family presence policy to allow immediate family members to stay with  patients 24 hours a day. We knew this was a step in the direction of delivering patient- and family-centered care.

We presented the proposal at a meeting of our patient and family advisory council.  One of the members of the council told a story that drove home the importance …

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Spurring a movement for patient and family-centered care

Health care is too nuanced for lengthy scripts

Physician
June 17, 2014

Recently in one of the Johns Hopkins Hospital’s intensive care units, a patient was dying from cancer and sepsis, and there was nothing that I, nurse Mandy Schwartz or anyone else could do to stop it. Yet as the patient’s family — two daughters and a husband — suffered at her bedside, Mandy saw their need for comfort, and she responded. Although she was busy with nursing tasks, she delved …

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Health care is too nuanced for lengthy scripts

What paying it forward in health care looks like

Physician
June 4, 2014

The doughnut shop I pass on my drive to the hospital isn’t the kind of place where you might expect to see outpourings of random kindness. It sits in the shadow of a raised highway, a few doors down from a bail bond business and a block away from a prison complex that resembles a medieval castle.

One Sunday before Valentine’s Day, the line to get served there was long, checkered …

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What paying it forward in health care looks like

There are no quick fixes to hospital-acquired infections

Policy
April 22, 2014

Recently, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued two reports that are simultaneously scary and encouraging.

First, the scary news: A national survey conducted in 2011 found that one in every 25 U.S. hospital patients experienced a healthcare-associated infection. That’s 648,000 patients with a combined 722,000 infections. About 75,000 of those patients died during their hospitalizations, although it’s unknown how many of those deaths resulted from the …

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There are no quick fixes to hospital-acquired infections

Introducing yourself to patients is a patient safety issue

Physician
April 3, 2014

One of the most exciting things about working in patient safety and health care quality is that it’s not solely about advancing science or applying performance improvement methods. It is also about the excitement of being part of a social movement that is changing the culture of medicine — putting patients at the center of everything, sharing errors in the hopes of preventing future ones, and confronting hierarchies that stifle …

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Introducing yourself to patients is a patient safety issue

How do we avoid initiative fatigue?

Policy
March 18, 2014

Frontline caregivers across the United States — and in many other countries, no doubt — are bombarded by multiple quality improvement (QI) projects. A clinical unit might simultaneously be engaged in efforts to reduce readmissions, eliminate hospital-acquired infections and other complications, increase hand-hygiene compliance, improve performance on core measures, and enhance the patient experience. The demands brought by participating in all of these efforts risk overwhelming health care professionals, who …

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How do we avoid initiative fatigue?

When health care adopts best practices from other industries

Policy
January 4, 2014

Last fall, the Armstrong Institute, along with our partners at the World Health Organization, had the privilege of hosting more than 200 clinicians, patient advocates, health care leaders and policy makers for our inaugural Forum on Emerging Topics in Patient Safety in Baltimore.

The event featured presentations by international experts in a dozen different industries, including aviation safety expert Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, a former space shuttle commander and the chief …

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When health care adopts best practices from other industries

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