Joint Commission journal on quality and patient safety最新文献

Background: Increased care demands at a health care institution led to strained resources, emergency department (ED) congestion, safety events, and patient and employee dissatisfaction. Moreover, high volumes of afternoon discharges contributed to limited early morning bed availability and admission bottlenecks.

Methods: A 29-month pre-post design quality improvement project on 19 acute care, adult medicine units across two campuses at a large academic medical center was implemented to improve discharge timeliness, length of stay (LOS), and ED throughput by increasing pre-11:00 a.m. discharges. Based on Lean Six Sigma methodology, interventions included standardized interdisciplinary discharge processes and roles, processes to ensure performance data transparency and access, a recognition program, and a barrier tracking and mitigation process for continued improvements.

Results: During the intervention period, pre-11:00 a.m. discharges increased from 5.1% to 21.8% (p < 0.001), discharge orders were entered 42 minutes earlier (p < 0.001), patients were discharged 56 minutes earlier (p < 0.001), the percentage of discharges completed within 90 minutes from discharge order improved from 26.2% to 38.1% (p < 0.001), the percentage of discharges by 3:00 p.m. improved from 44.7% to 55.9% (p < 0.001), ED admissions arrived to units 44 minutes earlier (p < 0.001), median LOS decreased by 0.46 days (p < 0.001), median observed-to-expected (O:E) LOS decreased by 0.05 (p < 0.001), and opportunity day reductions contributed to increased bed capacity of 18.84 beds per day.

Conclusion: Early morning discharges are associated with improved patient throughput and are safe, achievable, and sustainable via interventions focused on frontline engagement, interdisciplinary collaboration, standardization, barrier mitigation, data accessibility, and accountability.

Background: Medication errors (MEs) pose risks to patient safety, resulting in substantial economic costs. To enhance patient safety and learning from incidents, health care and pharmacovigilance organizations systematically collect ME data through reporting systems. Despite the growing literature on MEs in reporting systems, an overview of methods used to analyze them is lacking. The authors aimed to identify, explore, and map available literature on methods used to analyze MEs in reporting systems.

Methods: The review was based on Joanna Briggs Institute's methodology. The authors systematically searched electronic databases Embase, Medline, CINAHL, Cochrane Central, and other sources (Google Scholar, health care safety and pharmacovigilance centers' websites). Literature published from January 2017 to December 2023 was screened and extracted by two independent researchers.

Results: Among the 59 extracted publications, analyses most often focused on MEs occurring in hospitals (57.6%), included both adult and pediatric patients (79.7%), and used national patent safety monitoring systems as a source (69.5%). We identified quantitative (39.0%), qualitative (11.9%), mixed methods (37.3%), and advanced computerized methods (11.9%). Descriptive quantitative analyses for categorized data were common; however, disproportionality analysis constituted a newer approach to address issues with reporting bias. Free-text data were commonly managed by content analysis, while mixed methods analyzed both categorized and free-text data. In addition, text mining, natural language processing, and artificial intelligence were used in more recent studies.

Conclusion: This scoping review uncovered a notable span and diversity in methodologies. Future research should assess the use, applicability, and effectiveness of newer methods such as disproportionality analysis and advanced computerized techniques.

Background: Rebuilding patient trust in the US health care system has received considerable attention recently, but there has been little focus on health care workers' (HCWs) trust in the leaders of health care delivery organizations. This study explores (1) the professional impact on HCWs of trusting the leaders of the organizations where they work and (2) the leadership actions that build HCWs' trust.

Methods: The authors examined these questions using a survey that was crowdsourced to 353 HCWs through social media posts and e-mails from national health organizations. For each open-ended question, qualitative codes were identified, iteratively finalized, and applied to each response. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the closed-ended questions and examine how often each qualitative code was raised.

Results: One in five (20.2%) HCWs trusted leadership "very much," more than a third (36.9%) trusted "somewhat," and 42.9% had lower levels of trust. Almost all (97.7%) reported that the degree of trust they had in their organization's leadership affected them professionally. Among HCWs who trusted their organization's leadership, the most common impact was feeling professional satisfaction, followed by providing higher-quality work. HCWs described three main ways health care organization leaders earned their trust: communicating effectively (being transparent and soliciting HCWs' input), treating HCWs well (with respect and kindness and providing good compensation), and prioritizing patient care.

Conclusion: The findings suggest health care organizations would benefit from leaders seeking to earn HCWs' trust. With trust in leadership, HCWs report higher work quality and greater professional satisfaction.

Background: Housing instability in the United States is a critical social determinant of health, influencing health outcomes and health care utilization. This scoping review aimed to analyze literature on US health system screening and response programs addressing housing instability, highlighting methodologies, geographic and demographic variations, and policy implications.

Methods: Adhering to PRISMA-ScR guidelines, the review included studies focusing on US health systems that screen and refer for housing instability. Major scholarly databases, including PubMed and Scopus, were queried. Screening and response program characteristics, methodologies, and outcomes were characterized.

Results: Thirty studies published between 2003 and 2023 were included in this study. Included studies were primarily cross-sectional (26.7%) or quality improvement (20.0%), among 9 other designs. Screening programs were predominantly implemented in academic hospital systems (46.7%) and in the Northeast (63.3%). Of the 25 adult population studies, 68.0% were in outpatient settings, and of the 23 studies providing detailed information on their process, 52.2% used electronic health record entry. Of the 22 studies that describe their screening tool, 15 used institution-specific tools, and only 4 of the remaining 7 studies used identical tools. Of the 20 studies that described their response to positive screenings, 13 provided patients with a paper or electronic referral to a collaborating community partner, while only 6 aided the patient in connecting with community resources.

Conclusion: This study found significant variability in screening and response programs for housing instability among US health care providers. A lack of standardized definitions and methodologies hampers effective comparison and implementation of these programs. Future research should focus on standardizing screening methods and measurement of interventions and outcomes to address housing instability.

Background: Many hospitals and surgery centers have focused improvement efforts on operating room inefficiencies. A common inefficiency is missing and unusable surgical instrumentation, which can result in case delays and decreased effectiveness. Lean Six Sigma methodology, a set of process improvement tools focused on the reduction of waste and variation, has been used to identify and correct root causes of missing and unusable instrumentation.

Methods: An analysis of current operations was performed within the Sterile Processing Department (SPD). The team assessed physical workflows, including decontamination, assembly, sterilization, and sterile storage, as well as digital processes. The team identified five drivers of defects: (1) staffing and training, (2) inventory management, (3) equipment and SPD physical environment, (4) standard workflows and communication, and (5) governance structure. A root cause was established for each driver, and Lean Six Sigma principles were applied. Two metrics were established to assess accuracy and efficiency in the SPD. First pass yield was defined as the proportion of trays processed that were usable after the first cycle. Tray defect rate was defined as the proportion of requested instruments that were missing or unusable.

Results: After implementation, the SPD increased first pass yield from 81.0% to 97.4% (p < 0.001) and reduced the defect rate from 2.2% to < 0.10% (p < 0.001) with sustainment for more than a year.

Conclusion: Application of Lean Six Sigma methodology improved tray accuracy in a hospital's SPD. It is feasible and beneficial to apply improvement methodology developed for manufacturing in the hospital setting to reduce missing and unusable instrumentation.

Sickle cell disease (SCD) is a life-limiting multisystem disease primarily affecting individuals of African and Latinx descent. Its most common complication is painful vaso-occlusive episodes (VOEs), which is also the most common reason individuals with SCD seek care in the emergency department (ED). National guidelines recommend the use of standardized approaches to pain management in the ED, preferably using pain management plans tailored to each patient. However, no standard approach to developing these plans exists. This article describes the development of an opioid calculator to help SCD clinicians create individualized plans to better manage acute painful VOE in the ED setting.

Background: Telehealth involves providing health care remotely using communication tools such as telephone, video, and remote patient monitoring. Research on telehealth has shown many benefits, including improved access to care and reduced costs, and drawbacks, including delays in care, breakdowns in communication, and missed diagnoses. The use of telehealth nationally, including in the Veterans Health Administration (VHA), expanded dramatically during the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite its increased use, few studies have described adverse events or the role of patient safety in the provision of telehealth.

Methods: The authors looked at all reports of adverse events and close calls in the VHA involving the use of telehealth between October 1, 2022, and February 2, 2023, and coded each case for the location of the event, type of event, and causes.

Results: A total of 145 reports met criteria for review. Most events occurred in primary care, outpatient behavioral health, and radiology, with delays in care, medication errors, and equipment problems being common types. Most reported events did not cause harm; 45 cases were identified as an unsafe condition, 37 as a close call, and 15 as causing some harm to the patient. There were 3,609,105 telehealth episodes of care during this time, resulting in a reporting rate of 4.02 per 100,000 episodes of care and 0.42 reports of harm per 100,000 episodes of care.

Conclusion: The most frequent telehealth-related events were delays in care, medication errors, and equipment issues, and most events were not unique to this modality. Further research is needed to characterize safety events unique to telehealth to better define parameters for patient safety activities. Recommendations to reduce errors include ongoing provider training, human factors analysis of telehealth processes, simplifying processes and procedures for providers and patients to get help for technical or knowledge deficits in real time, and examining the business rules for telehealth care.

The Risk Analysis Index (RAI) has emerged as the most thoroughly validated and flexible assessment of surgical frailty, proven feasible for at-scale bedside screening and available in a suite of tools, that effectively risk stratifies patients across a wide variety of clinical contexts and data sources. This user guide provides a definitive summary of the RAI's theoretical model, historical development, validation, statistical performance, and clinical interpretation, placing the RAI in context with other frailty assessments and emphasizing some of its advantages. Detailed instructions are provided for each RAI variant, along with a systematic review of existing RAI-related literature.

Background: Children presenting to the pediatric emergency department (PED) with neurologic dysfunction require prompt evaluation. Many PEDs successfully implement stroke alerts. However, most pediatric patients presenting with neurologic dysfunction have a non-stroke diagnosis better evaluated using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Therefore, we created a Neuro Deterioration clinical pathway using fast MRI to reduce time from PED arrival to completion of radiologic report by 25% in all PED patients presenting with new neurologic dysfunction.

Methods: After creating an algorithm and allocating resources, the team used quality improvement methodology to implement a Neuro Deterioration clinical pathway. Interventions focused on patient identification, patient flow, and electronic decision support. Statistical process control charting assessed interventions. The primary outcome measure was time from PED arrival to completion of radiologic report. Additional measures included time from arrival to image finish and percentage of patients on pathway.

Results: From 2018 to 2021, time from PED arrival to completion of radiologic report reduced by 32.2%. The average time decrease from a baseline of 211 (n = 287, January 2018-August 2019) to 143 minutes (n = 162, October 2020-December 2021), as noted by a centerline shift on the statistical process control chart. Average time from PED arrival to image finish decreased from 179 to 131 minutes. Percentage of patients on pathway increased. The average age of patients on pathway was 11.5 years, 63.8% were admitted, and 87.5% had a fast MRI for initial imaging. Of the 30.4% of patients with abnormal findings on initial imaging, 85.8% had non-stroke etiologies.

Conclusion: The authors created a sustainable Neuro Deterioration clinical pathway to improve time to diagnosis of all pediatric patients with neurologic findings in the PED.