Patient Safety

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, health care providers on average clean their hands less than half of the times they should. Limestone Medical Center in Groesbeck, Texas, sought to improve its employee hand hygiene compliance rate, and did, by 96.01 percent.

Preventable harm in health care remains a major concern in the United States, despite substantial effort to improve over the past 20 years. This report from the Institute for Healthcare Improvement provides clear direction for health care leaders, delivery organizations, and associations to make significant advances toward increased safety and reduced harm across the continuum of care.

Research by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement Innovation Team has identified some of the keys to successfully organizing quality departments. By bringing the right people together, building connections across different functions, and distinguishing among different types of quality activities, health care systems can build strong and balanced teams.

View presentations from the 2022 annual National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN) live training on how to identify, report, and analyze VAE, PedVAE, CAUTI, CLABSI, Secondary Bloodstream Infection (BSI) and Site-Specific Infections, SSI, MRSA Bacteremia and C. difficile LabID events, as well as presentations on validation of healthcare-associated infection data, and reporting and analysis of antibiotic use and resistance data.

Hospitals can use this guide to the effective and consistent monitoring and reporting of hand hygiene compliance for the purposes of improving patient safety.

A toolkit from the John Hopkins Hospital with tools and resources to promote hand hygiene.

This tool allows health care providers to document and monitor hand hygiene before and after patient contact and after removal of gloves.

The new StAT (Standards, Approaches and Tactics for Infection Control & Prevention) Learning Series includes a variety of interactive, self-paced learning modules on infection prevention and control in the hospital setting. The series of 15-minute learning modules is produced by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and is tailored to teams leading hospital infection prevention programs and care teams.

Livanta was recently awarded a national contract for Short Stay and Higher Weighted Diagnosis-Related Group (HWDRG) reviews. They will perform these reviews for all 50 states, five U.S. territories, and Washington, DC. Please note that this national contract does not change your state Beneficiary and Family Centered Care Quality Improvement Organization for quality of care reviews and appeals.

Hospitals can use this Tracer Tool to survey and evaluate their processes for reducing ventilator-associate events, with the goal of providing safe, high-quality patient care.

Hospitals can use this Tracer Tool companion document to track quality improvement progress.

Hospitals can use this worksheet to track organizational improvement changes through the Plan, Do, Study, Act cycle.

Hospitals can use this tracer tool to survey and evaluate their processes for surgical site infections (SSI), with the goal of providing safe, high-quality patient care.

Hospitals can use this Tracer Tool to survey and evaluate their processes for catheter-associated urinary tract infections, with the goal of providing safe, high-quality patient care.

Hospitals can use this tracer tool to survey and evaluate their processes for central line-associated bloodstream infections (CLABSI).

Hospitals can use this Tracer Tool to survey and evaluate their processes for reducing patient readmissions, with the goal of providing safe, high-quality patient care.

Hospitals can use this Tracer Tool to survey and evaluate their processes for adverse drug events regarding hypoglycemic agents, with the goal of providing safe, high-quality patient care.

In an effort to get evidenced-based treatment to more Americans with opioid use disorder, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is releasing new buprenorphine practice guidelines that remove a requirement tied to certain training certification, which some practitioners have cited as a barrier to treating more people.

Hospitals and other health care facilities can download this tool from TMF Health Quality Institute to help them assess their readiness to prevent or react to an adverse drug event.

The Process Improvement Discovery Tool helps hospitals provide safer patient care by identifying process improvement opportunities for ventilator-associated events.

The Process Improvement Discovery Tool helps hospitals provide safer patient care by identifying improvement opportunities to reduce harm from venous thromboembolism.

A checklist for hospitals to assess current practices to prevent harm from VTE-associated events in your facility.

A checklist for hospitals to review current interventions, or initiate new ones, for VAE reduction in your facility.

QualityNet, from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), provides health care quality improvement news, resources, and data reporting tools and applications for providers and others.

This event will provide information for successful submission of CY 2020 electronic clinical quality measure (eCQM) data to the Hospital Inpatient Quality Reporting (IQR) Program and Promoting Interoperability Program.

The Q3 2020 Hospital IQR Program Checklist, available on the Quality Reporting Center website, will assist you in meeting your Q3 2020 Hospital IQR Program requirements.

The National Action Plan for Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria (CARB), 2020-2025, presents actions that the United States Government will take in the next five years to improve the health and wellbeing of all Americans by changing the course of antibiotic resistance.

Improving safety culture in any health care setting involves engaging all team members. This webinar helps established team leaders from the bedside to the board room and across the care continuum discover how to use evidence-based teamwork tools to engage patients and family member as safety champions.

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) shares 10 patient safety tips hospital staff can implement to prevent medical errors and adverse events.

Make sure your patients are up-to-date with pneumococcal vaccination with this CDC guidance on pneumococcal vaccine timing for adults.

Watch this brief video from the Leapfrog Hospital Group that highlights the two most common harms patients experience in a hospital setting and how to prevent them.