Articles related to PATIENT SAFETY

The Organ Transplant and Procurement Network (OTPN) is set to undergo modernization and improvement after being criticized for lack of transparency, long waits, mishandling of organs, and the number of people who die on the waitlist each year. The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) has launched the OTPN modernization project, which will focus on accountability. The current system is outdated and has been responsible for 70 deaths between 2010 and 2020, according to a 2022 senate report. The HRSA plans to take steps, such as creating a new dashboard, to provide transparency and better serve patients and their families. Additional modernization will focus on overhauling the operations of the OTPN system to ensure higher compliance and a greater focus on patient safety. Organ transplants and the OTPN disproportionately affect the Black community in the US. About 30% of the ONTP waitlist is Black Americans, and about 90% are waiting for kidney transplants. The HRSA’s plan hopes to address the inequality by improving accountability, transparency, and systems of organ retrieval and matching. The changes will benefit patients, and physicians might be able to see more of their patients receive the life-saving transplants they need.

Are you knowledgeable about the best procedures for sanitizing dental instruments, or are you making mistakes that could be dangerous? Test your knowledge by completing this quiz.

In a randomized controlled trial at three US hospitals over six months in 2021, the researchers randomized 30 attendings to prioritize seeing patients who were expected to be discharged that day before seeing other patients. Marisha Burden, MD, FACP, a professor of medicine and division head of hospital medicine at the University of Colorado School of Medicine in Aurora, and Angela Keniston, MSPH, an assistant professor and director of data and analytics for the division of hospital medicine at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, discuss the study’s findings.

Some cans of Bumble Bee, Chicken of the Sea, StarKist, Safe Catch, and Wild Planet tuna contained higher than usual mercury levels, despite the average level being within standards.

This physician sounds the alarm on CDC’s ill-founded mandates for mandatory masking, citing the recent Cochrane Review.

Healthgrades communicates performance in two ways—through ratings and awards—to assist consumers in evaluating and comparing hospital performance specific to specialist service lines and speciality emphasis areas. Using Medicare inpatient data from the Medicare Provider Analysis and Review (MedPAR) file purchased from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) for the years 2019 through 2021, hospitals were evaluated for overall clinical excellence and measure performance. Data on patient outcomes for 31 diseases or treatments were examined for almost all hospitals in the nation. Also, with the fewest occurrences of 14 avoidable patient safety events, hospitals in the top 10% of the country are honored with the Patient Safety Excellence Award, and analyzing data from surveys of the hospital’s own patients to evaluate patient experience across 10 metrics, the top 15% of hospitals receive the Outstanding Patient Experience Award. Finally, each year, Healthgrades recognizes hospitals in the United States that offer the most common gynecologic treatments and where patients are at a decreased risk of complications during their stay for labor and delivery.