All Entries Tagged With: "patient education"
Patient safety in 140 characters
In honor of patient safety week, the National Patient Safety Foundation hosted a tweet chat, in which participants all follow the same hashtag (#keyword) to have a large conversation. If you missed it, you can read the conversation by searching twitter for “#PSAW2012.” I suggest checking it out (you don’t even have to have Twitter to conduct a search) for the resourceful links alone. Comment below or tweet @PSeditor if you joined and what you liked about it.
Here are some of the topics and facts brought up in conversation:
- Health literacy:
Twelve percent of adults have good health literacy
E-literature might help follow up with patients post-visit
MDs tend to interrupt patients after 18 seconds of speaking
- PSAW:
Getting PSAW recognized by more of the general public to spread awareness beyond the healthcare setting
Why PSAW is observed, recognized, but not celebrated
Next PSAW is March 3 –9, 2013!
Here are some resources brought up in conversation:
NSPF’s new “Ask Me” video
AHRQ’s “Questions are the Answer” video
IMSP has new tools and resources
Health Literacy: Reducing the Burden of a Complex Healthcare System
Patient Safety Week 2012: Informing the Journey, Not Changing the Destination
Checklists that patients and doctors follow can improve hospital care
Dreaming the dream (by Peter Provonost)
Navigating the Health Care System: Advice Columns from Dr. Carolyn Clancy
Do Electronic Medical Records Save Money?
What’s in a Name? Safer care, for one.
20 Tips to Help Prevent Medical Errors: Patient Fact Sheet
Visitation rights and restrictions
I wanted to share with you an opportunity to learn more about patient visitation rights and restrictions because who can and cannot visit a patient while he or she is in the hospital has changed in recent years.
Heavily covered in national news, new federal mandates give patients more authority and autonomy to decide who may visit them as they try to recover. To align with these mandates, The Joint Commission updated two Elements of Performance (EP) under its Patient Rights (RI) chapter. These changes were announced July 13, 2011, and were retroactively effective as of July 1, 2011.
Both changes were made under standard RI.01.01.01, which states that the hospital must promote, respect, and promote patient rights. EP 1 requires hospitals to have written policies on patient rights, and a new note for hospitals that use Joint Commission accreditation for deemed status, says the EP now requires hospitals address in those policies visitation rights procedures, such as restrictions or limitations (including those clinically necessary).
It’s safe to say that any hospital that either accidentally or purposely infringes on those rights is going to end up big trouble. And it’s not just implementing policy–educating patients to be empowered to know their rights, including their rights regarding visitation, is critical. It also enhances patient experience and satisfaction, another area laying heavy on the minds of quality professionals these days as reimbursement is now partially tied to HCAHPS scores.
Wouldn’t it be nice to have a patient safety expert and veteran guide you through this change? To help you do your job in ensuring your organization is compliant with federal and Joint Commission standards? Join Barbara Balik, RN, MS, EdD, senior faculty at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), principal of Common Fire Healthcare Consulting, and a member of the National Patient Safety Foundation Board of Governors, for a January 26 webcast to learn what must be done.
Post-harm action plan: Does your hospital have a plan when an adverse event occurs?
The National Association for Healthcare Quality held its 35th annual education conference in Kansas City, MO, this past week and weekend. HCPro was there, as I’m sure many of you were as well. There were some great presentations, including the opening keynote speaker, Jim Conway, MS, a senior fellow at the Institute of Healthcare Improvement. Conway spoke on “Respecting Those We Are Privileged to Serve Especially When the News Isn’t Good,” emphasizing the need for a defined process of actions to be taken when an adverse event occurs.
Conway said that within the first hour of an error, steps should be taken to notify the appropriate people and support should already be in effect for staff, patients and/or families. Many hospitals have plans for floods and fires, said Conway, but few have action plans for when hospital harms a patient—a much more likely event, he pointed out.
(Look for the December issue of Patient Safety Monitor Journal [formerly Briefings on Patient Safety] in the next month for a more in-depth look at some of the other informative presentations, including interviews with the presenters.)
Does your hospital have an action plan once an adverse event occurs? Would you know what to do? What to say to the patient and/or family? Where to find immediate support if you’ve committed an error?
ED interpreters improve satisfaction
Patients in the ED are often distressed and on edge. It’s well noted that communicating with the patient, whether that means telling them the expected wait time or giving explicit discharge directions, is one of the best ways to increase patient satisfaction. But when the patient does not speak fluent English, good communication can be harder to come by.
A new study shows just how important that communication is by surveying patients who received professional on-site interpreters in the emergency department. Out of these 242 patients, 96% were “very satisfied” with their ability to communicate during the ER visit, compared to 24% in the control group. The study, Examining Effectiveness of Medical Interpreters in Emergency Departments for Spanish-Speaking Patients with Limited English Proficiency: Results of a Randomized Controlled Trial, also showed that clinicians who worked with the patients with professional on-site interpreters were on average more satisfied.
New and different challenges emerge between patient and physician with Internet advances
A recent commentary in the New England Journal of Medicine summarizes well the problems and benefits that the Internet has brought to American healthcare. Written by Pamela Hartzband, MD, and Jerome Groopman, MD, the commentary describe the Internet as the technological advance that has had the most profound effect on their clinical practices since they have been physicians. Because of its ability to provide vast amounts of true and misinformation, the Internet has given patients the ability to inform themselves about potential sicknesses for the better or for the worse. Hospitals have used the Internet to connect with patients more often and more efficiently; this too can have negative and positive consequences.
From a patient safety standpoint, I think learning how to harness the power of the Internet and all of the information contained on it is going to be one of the major challenges in the next ten years. Also, physicians and healthcare organizations will have to decide how they themselves view the Internet and want to interact with it. If patients cannot decipher what is true and what is false, is it physician’s responsibility to inform them? Perhaps this will become the job of a care manager- to act as a liaison to the patient and also keep in touch with physicians and caregivers about the information patients are seeking.
How do you view the Internet in conjunction with patient care? Is it a hinderance or an opportunity for improved care?
Patient Safety Monitor Blog Contest entry!
I want to highlight some of the entries into the Patient Safety Monitor Blog Contest, in honor of Patient Safety Awareness Week. Today I’d like to share an entry by Anna Green, who works in quality management and patient satisfaction at Boone County Hospital in Boone IA. Her facility has created a patient safety quilt as one way to observe the week.
The quilt squares are made up of three questions that each participating department developed, based off of the National Patient Safety Foundation’s “Ask Me 3″ program. Ask Me 3 is a campaign to promote patient education by arming patients with three questions they should ask their caregivers. The departments at Boone County Hospital came up with specific questions that they often receive, and creatively displayed them on a quilt square. Anna and her colleagues hung up the quilt for patients, employees, and visitors to see, and it will stay hanging throughout Patient Safety Awareness Week.
In Anna’s words:
Eleven departments were asked to create a 24 x 24 inch quilt square by listing their three most commonly asked questions and anything else creative they wanted to add that would distinguish their department and creativity. We ended up with something much more than we were expecting! The departments really had a lot of fun with this activity.
Tammy Flick, our Clinical Informatics director actually thought of the Quilt. We all instantly loved it! Tammy is creative and I knew it, so I wanted her to be a part of the team, even though she doesn’t typically attend specific pt safety committees. I think it’s a good way to get everyone involved and sends the message to other staff that we want their participation as well.
Along with the quilt, those participating developed word documents that list out the questions and answer them in detail. These documents are being given out as handouts to staff and patients during this week. You can find two examples here, one from the emergency department and from the surgical department.
HealthLeaders Media publishes list of 20 people who make healthcare better
HealthLeaders Media publishes an annual list of 20 people who make healthcare better. This year’s list runs the gamut of healthcare executives, healthcare insurance staff, patients and consumers, and nurses and physicians who have gone above and beyond to improve healthcare. If you have time, check out the entire list.
I want to bring attention to one person on the list, Brian Jack, who was in charge of a research grant called Project RED, which stands for re-engineered discharge. We covered the project back in June 2009 in a Briefings on Patient Safety article. Jack and his team received a grant from the AHRQ to study where errors were occurring in the discharge process–not so much during discharge but after discharge, when 30% of patients are readmitted to the hospital. Project RED utilizes 11 interventions in a checklist at a patient’s discharge to make sure the patient understands his or her discharge instructions. Another key component is ensuring patients have a follow-up appointment booked within 24 hours. Hopefully this project, and others that emphasize the need to spend more time with patients during the crucial discharge process, will help reduce readmission rates.
AHRQ adds health literacy questions to CAHPS data set
The Agency for Research and Healthcare Quality (AHRQ) has released a set of 29 questions to be added to the CAHPS (Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems) Clinician and Group Survey that address health literacy. The set of questions was created in conjunction with Healthy People 2010, a national health promotion and disease prevention initiative. The questions touch on the following topics:
- Communication with doctors
- Communication about health problems and concerns
- Communication about medicines
- Communication about tests
- Communication about forms
- Disease self-management
Research shows that only 12% of adults are fully health literate. The AHRQ’s definition of health literacy is “patients’ ability to obtain, process, and understand the basic health information and services they need to make appropriate health decisions.” In recent years there’s been a greater push to make it the part of the physician’s and clinical team’s responsibility to educate patients about their health issues. The questions were designed as an assessment tool to help clinicians measure if their efforts are paying off and patients are in fact becoming more health literate, and it was also designed to be a quality improvement tool.
To find the set of health literacy CAHPS questions, and more about them, click here. Do you think your facility would add these health literacy questions to its existing set of CAHPS questions?
October celebrates Health Literacy Month, National Healthcare Quality Week
The month of October brings us two health-related events to celebrate: Health Literacy Month and National Healthcare Quality Week (October 18-24). Both events give healthcare workers and their organizations a chance to think about current practices and how to improve in the name of patient safety.
Health Literacy Month, which was started by Helen Osborne, MEd, OTR/L, a health literacy consultant, in 1999. This year’s theme is “Why Health Literacy Matters: Sharing Our Stories in Words, Pictures, and Sound” and is accompanied by an informative Web site (www.healthliteracymonth.org). Each day during the month of October a new health literacy “story” is added to the “stories section of the Web site. One of these highlights a couple of songs sung by Mache Seibel, MD, in honor of the month. You can find more of his songs at the Web site www.healthrock.com. Additionally, the Health Literacy site provides different resources and materials for the month.
National Healthcare Quality Week (NHQW) is being observed next week and the National Association for Healthcare Quality’s (NAHQ) Web sitecontains news about continuing education opportunities and events in honor of the week. The time is meant to highlight those healthcare workers whose quality work influences patient outcomes for the better. It also provides suggestions for ways that healthcare facilities can promote and publicize NHQW or any NHQW-related events being put on in the organization or larger community.
Are any of your facilities observing Health Literacy Month or National Healthcare Quality Week? What has your hospital done?
Announcing the winner of the Patient Safety Monitor Contest!
The month-long Patient Safety Monitor Contest has come to a close, and I’d like to thank everyone who sent in entries, read the creative ideas of the week, and commented on the blog. Although there were many great ideas entered into the contest, our panel of judges at HCPro has chosen Abington Memorial Hospital’s (AMH) “Patient Safety First” education program as the winner!
Entered by Robert C. Giannini, NHA, safety/quality specialist at AMH in Abington, PA, the program includes a month-by-month effort to focus on a different patient safety topic each month on a hospital-wide level. It’s an education campaign to train all staff members about the patient safety issues facing hospitals today.
In Robert’s words:
The objective of this monthly program is to promote communication (“a behavior a month”) and hospital-wide alignment in our efforts to establish and maintain a safe and reliable healthcare culture.
The program meshes the Joint Commission’s National Patient Safety Goals for 2009 with the hospital’s own internal goals. Part of the effort involves safety coaches, who are frontline caregivers that make it a goal to involve all of their fellow staff members in the theme of the month. This has been such a success at AMH partly because staff members know that the effort is not going away. It’s publicized in some of the hospital’s newsletters and materials are posted throughout the facility to remind staff members the focus of the month.
For 2009, AMH developed a 12-month Patient Safety First schedule. The focus in January was on hand hygiene. The hospital developed patient education materials to alert patients that handwashing was a focus that month and asked them to be a partner in their own safe care. Additionally, those in charge of the campaign created separate materials for staff members, reminding them that January’s patient safety topic was performing hand hygiene before and after contact with patients or the hospital environment.
Thanks for entering, Robert! As the winner of the contest, Robert receives a complimentary copy of the Patient Safety Officer’s Handbook.
