Patient Safety Monitor Blog

Perception versus practice in quality of care

kgravel — Tue, 22 May 2012 17:36:36 +0000

Patients’ perceived quality of care varied greatly from the actual quality of care as defined by adherence to guidelines, according to a study published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology last month. Researchers surveyed 374 women receiving treatment for early stage breast cancer at New York City hospitals and asked the patients to rate the [...]

Create patient safety solutions that are right for you

Tami Swartz — Tue, 15 May 2012 17:21:54 +0000

Editor’s note: Columnist Catherine Hinz, MHA, works as a leader in patient safety at HealthEast Care System in St. Paul, MN. Hinz previously worked at PatientSafe Solutions, Inc. Hinz has also completed a patient safety internship with the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. The following is an excerpt of her monthly column, which can [...]

Nurses Week: Contest to win a free webcast on preventing CAUTIs!

Tami Swartz — Fri, 11 May 2012 14:14:50 +0000

We’re marking the last day of HCPro’s Nurses Week celebration with a fun nursing quiz! Entrants who answer all questions correctly will be entered into a drawing for a chance to win a free seat to HCPro’s webcast on evidence-based methods to prevent catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTI). The lucky winners will be able to [...]

Nurses Week – More offerings from HCPro!

Tami Swartz — Thu, 10 May 2012 14:24:46 +0000

Every day during Nurses Week, HCPro is offering something special. Here is what we’ve offered so far, and you can come back tomorrow to see our last offering for the week! What’s in store for today: Looking for new resources and training materials for your nursing staff? You’re in luck, because today in honor of National Nurses [...]

HCPro celebrates National Nurses Week!

Tami Swartz — Tue, 08 May 2012 18:20:12 +0000

May 6 through May 12 marks the celebration of National Nurses Week, an annual event to recognize the contributions of nurses throughout the country. In honor of Nurses Week, HCPro will feature a different special offer each day, including discounts, giveaways, and contests. To kick off Nurses Week, HCPro is giving away a free white paper [...]

The many measures of patient safety and quality

Tami Swartz — Tue, 01 May 2012 18:07:09 +0000

Defining quality through a patient’s eyes Editor’s note: Columnist Catherine Hinz, MHA, works as a leader in patient safety at HealthEast Care System in St. Paul, MN. Hinz previously worked at PatientSafe Solutions, Inc. Hinz has also completed a patient safety internship with the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. The following is an excerpt of [...]

CAUTIs still a problem

Tami Swartz — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 18:49:58 +0000

Bit of a plug, but I think my visitors will find HCPro’s webcast on CAUTIs (catheter-associated urinary tract infections) extremely relevant, especially as CAUTIs cause 35% of all hospital-acquired infections every year, with 38,000 patient infections, and costing hospitals $400 million a year, according to an October 2011 National Quality Forum’s Partnership for Patients/ National [...]

HCAHPS information studied by demographics

Tami Swartz — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 17:58:37 +0000

Interestingly, a new study of HCAHPS scores shows that when you split up the survey by sex, men are more favorable in rating their care. If patients were older and sicker, the difference was even more pronounced. Women were particularly more dissatisfied than men in the area of the information they received regarding medication and [...]

The push and pull of quality initiatives

Tami Swartz — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 18:31:11 +0000

Sometimes quality can be a bit like a game of whack-a-mole. As you try to improve in one area, another area falls off the radar, gets worse, and you winding up shifting resources every quarter, back and forth in a reaction to data. Like whack-a-mole, you keep trying to hit moving targets. But perhaps there’s more [...]

Win-lose? Why quality measures might lead to poor HCAHPS scores

Tami Swartz — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 18:23:03 +0000

New research indicates that implementing quality measures can improve clinical outcomes but may create a lower patient perception of quality care. Ohio State University researchers studied lots of data from all over and determined that, at least in the short-term, implementing standard quality measures might negatively hit your patient satisfaction scores. The problem is this: Standardization is [...]