Better Health: Smart Health Commentary Better Health (TM): smart health commentary

Latest Posts

Medical School: Teaching Doctors About Patient Safety

Ten years after the release of the IOM report To Err is Human, which documented the toll taken by medical errors in this country, the question remains: What can be done to reverse the trend of ever-increasing morbidity and mortality due to medical errors?  Last December, a look back over the decade since the release of To Err is Human — and a steady medical error death rate of about 100,000 per year included a series of suggestions for tweaks to the health care delivery system that may help ameliorate the situation.  Earlier this week, a gadget that enforces good handwashing technique by sniffing caregiver and clinician hands for soap before a hospital patient may be touched has been touted as potentially saving significant costs related to HAIs.

Today, the Lucian Leape Institute released a report titled Unmet Needs: Teaching Physicians to Provide Safe Patient Care which focuses on moving back the point in time where an intervention is needed to reverse the trend documented in To Err is Human and since.  Leape and his colleagues at the National Patient Safety Foundation are now focused on reinventing the medical school curriculum, so that patient safety will be taught more effectively in medical schools. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at HealthBlawg :: David Harlow's Health Care Law Blog*

Board Certification May Not Be A Good Proxy For Quality Care In Emergency Medicine

The American Board of Emergency Medicine (ABEM) describes itself as:

Welcome to the American Board of Emergency Medicine (ABEM) public website.  ABEM certifies qualifying physicians who specialize in Emergency Medicine and is a member board of the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS).  ABMS certification is sought and earned by physicians on a voluntary basis. ABEM and other ABMS member boards certify only those physicians who meet high educational, professional standing, and examination standards.  ABEM and other ABMS member boards are not membership associations.

The thing I’d like to bring your attention to is that it’s a Voluntary organization.  For a voluntary organization they’re adding lots of requirements without asking members… Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at GruntDoc*

Hospitals Planning To Punish Docs Who Don’t Help Them Get Paid

Over at the WSJ Health Blog, some academic docs, such as hospitalist Dr. Wachter are suggesting just that.

Punishments such as revoking privileges for a chunk of time tend to be used for administrative infractions that cost the hospital money – things like failing to sign the discharge summaries that insurance companies require to pay the hospital bill. By contrast, hospital administrators may just shrug their shoulders when it comes to doctors who fail or refuse to follow rules like a “time out” before surgery to avoid operating on the wrong body part.

Docs and nurses who fail to follow rules about hand hygiene or patient handoffs should lose their privileges for a week, Pronovost and Wachter suggest. They recommend loss of privileges for two weeks for surgeons who who fail to perform a “time-out” before surgery or don’t mark the surgical site to prevent wrong-site surgery.

This couldn’t have come at a better time.  At Happy’s hospital there is a massive witch hunt to crack down on not signing off verbal orders within 48 hours.  This has nothing to do with patient safety.  It has everything to do with meeting the requirements of CMS  so the hospital does not lose their funding. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at A Happy Hospitalist*

Why Is Food and Drink Prohibited At The Nurse’s Station?

Over the last several weeks I have received numerous emails dictating the enforcement of work place rules regarding eating and drinking in nursing areas and other areas with patient charts. It seems everyone, from the Chief of Staff to the CEO to the Head Nurse In Charge has been making it very clear that drinking in work areas won’t be tolerated. I have at times been confronted by dutiful staff doing their jobs with a robust sense of confidence to enforce this potentially dangerous patient safety issue.

Or so I thought. Whilst speaking with one of Happy’s friendly colleagues, I learned that the issue of food and drink in the work place has nothing to do with patient safety. Like my colleague stated so eloquently, if there is data that can be presented to me that shows my action of drinking coffee at the work stations would some how harm my patient, I will gladly stop immediately. Discussion finished.

But as I learned from my colleague, the issue of food and drink at the nurse’s station or anywhere near patient charts has nothing to do with patient safety. In fact, the regulations are in place to protect ME from myself.

That’s right, the coffee Nazis are cruising the halls with reckless abandonment searching for violators of the hospital wide coffee ban on rounds not because patients could be harmed, but because I could harm myself.

You see, it turns out my distinguished colleague was told these regulations were not CMS or JCAHO regulations, but rather OSHA regulations.

So I looked it up

“OSHA does not have a general prohibition against the consumption of beverages at hospital nursing stations. However, OSHA’s bloodborne pathogens standard prohibits the consumption of food and drink in areas in which work involving exposure or potential exposure to blood or other potentially infectious material takes place, or where the potential for contamination of work surfaces exists 29 CFR 1910.1030(d)(2)(ix). Also, under 29 CFR 1910.141(g)(2), employees shall not be allowed to consume food or beverages in any area exposed to a toxic material. While you state that beverages at the nursing station might have a lid or cover, the container may also become contaminated, resulting in unsuspected contamination of the hands.

Here are the actual OSHA regulations

1910.1030(d)(2)(ix)

Eating, drinking, smoking, applying cosmetics or lip balm, and handling contact lenses are prohibited in work areas where there is a reasonable likelihood of occupational exposure.

1910.141(g)(2)

Eating and drinking areas. No employee shall be allowed to consume food or beverages in a toilet room nor in any area exposed to a toxic material.

In other words this is not a patient safety issue, but rather an employee safety issue. The Joint Commission has no specific standard on the issue other than for hospitals to comply with OSHA regulations.

So with that in mind, I have two comments regarding the issue:

  1. As a private practice physician who is not employed by the hospital, I would suggest that these OSHA rules do not apply to me and therefore the hospital risks no retribution for noncompliance from the accreditation arm of the Joint Commission, which is why I suspect the issue comes center stage for hospitals everywhere. If necessary, I will gladly sign a waiver to relinquish my rights to compensation should I ever contract a blood born pathogen or other communicable disease from drinking my coffee.
  2. If the hospital believes this is a patient safety issue and wishes to make their regulations stronger than those of OSHA and apply them to ALL people in areas with patient pathogens, I will gladly relinquish my daily fluids when I am shown the data regarding patient harm AND the hospital also bans all patient guests from bringing food or drink into the patient’s room. If this is a patient safety issue, it must apply to everyone should they wish to make their rules stronger than OSHA guidelines.

Until this is resolved with rational thought, perhaps over a round of coffee, I’m going to carry one of these around:

It always seems to work for patients.

*This blog post was originally published at A Happy Hospitalist*

Dropping The Ball In Patient Care: Provider Handoffs

One of the most dangerous times for a patient is during the transition, or “handoff,” between providers. This is due to a number of reasons. First, the original provider(s) may not relay all the information he or she knows about the patient to the next provider(s). Second, the accepting team may take it for granted that everything is known about the patient, and therefore not take a complete history or perform an adequate physical examination. Third, if the patient initially looks good, the accepting providers may be lulled into a false sense of security, and not anticipate a deterioration in the patient’s condition.

We know this problem to exist in the hospital setting. Survey of doctors-in-training suggests that handoffs may commonly lead to patient harm. Last year (2008) in September, there was a blog written by Elizabeth Cooney in the Boston Globe that stated, “a 2006 survey of resident physicians at Massachusetts General Hospital found that handoffs commonly lead to patient harm, according to an article in The Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety.” More than 50 percent “of the 161 medical or surgical residents who responded to the anonymous survey said they recalled at least one occasion in their last month-long rotation when a patient suffered from flawed handoffs.” Approximately “one in nine said the harm that resulted was significant.” The respondents said that “if the patient was coming from the emergency department or from another hospital, problematic handoffs were more likely.”

This holds true in the field. Unless the new treatment team makes the assumption that they need to begin their assessment of the patient’s condition from scratch, they are more likely to make a mistake. Obviously, such caution depends on the possible severity of the patient’s condition and the rescue/environmental situation. If I can get a decent handle on a patient’s condition, and there is little or no risk of me missing something, I will tailor my questioning and examination to suit the circumstances. However, I always start from the position that something has been hidden from me, of course not intentionally, and that the patient’s initial assessment has underestimated the problem(s).

I cannot begin to tell you how many times I have found something that was missed, or have accepted the care of a patient just as he or she began to “crash.” This is in no way a criticism of others, just a common fact of medical care. Previous rescuers may have been tired, the conditions may not have been conducive to a full examination, the patient may have been withholding information, or the situation may have just taken its natural course and worsened. Regardless, it’s my responsibility to learn what I can as quickly as I can about my patient, so that nothing slips through the cracks.

Here are some simple rules to follow:

1. If the situation permits, ask your new patient to repeat his or her history. If they are reticent to engage in a long conversation, at least try to get them to relate current relevant events.
2. Repeat as much of the physical examination as you can. Explain to the patient that you have assumed their care, and that in order to do the best that you can on their behalf, it’s important for you to understand their issues and to be able to monitor their progress based up the exam.
3. Assume that until you have talked to the patient or otherwise obtained a comprehensive history, and performed a physical examination with your own hands, eyes, and ears, that you do not know as much about your patient as you could.
4. If a patient is under your care for a prolonged time, or if you are managing a situation prone to rapid or undetected deterioration, interview and examine your patient as often as is necessary and practical. If you must be absent from a patient for a longer period than is prudent between examinations, delegate the responsibility to someone else.

image of leg splinting courtesy of www.princeton.edu

This post, Dropping The Ball In Patient Care: Provider Handoffs, was originally published on Healthine.com by Paul Auerbach, M.D..

Latest Interviews

IDEA Labs: Medical Students Take The Lead In Healthcare Innovation

It’s no secret that doctors are disappointed with the way that the U.S. healthcare system is evolving. Most feel helpless about improving their work conditions or solving technical problems in patient care. Fortunately one young medical student was undeterred by the mountain of disappointment carried by his senior clinician mentors…

Read more »

How To Be A Successful Patient: Young Doctors Offer Some Advice

I am proud to be a part of the American Resident Project an initiative that promotes the writing of medical students residents and new physicians as they explore ideas for transforming American health care delivery. I recently had the opportunity to interview three of the writing fellows about how to…

Read more »

See all interviews »

Latest Cartoon

See all cartoons »

Latest Book Reviews

Book Review: Is Empathy Learned By Faking It Till It’s Real?

I m often asked to do book reviews on my blog and I rarely agree to them. This is because it takes me a long time to read a book and then if I don t enjoy it I figure the author would rather me remain silent than publish my…

Read more »

The Spirit Of The Place: Samuel Shem’s New Book May Depress You

When I was in medical school I read Samuel Shem s House Of God as a right of passage. At the time I found it to be a cynical yet eerily accurate portrayal of the underbelly of academic medicine. I gained comfort from its gallows humor and it made me…

Read more »

Eat To Save Your Life: Another Half-True Diet Book

I am hesitant to review diet books because they are so often a tangled mess of fact and fiction. Teasing out their truth from falsehood is about as exhausting as delousing a long-haired elementary school student. However after being approached by the authors’ PR agency with the promise of a…

Read more »

See all book reviews »

Commented - Most Popular Articles