The 2019 Patient Safety Awareness Week is March 10 through March 16. Given that medical errors are estimated to be the third leading cause of death in the United States – killing as many as 440,000 people a year - this annual seven-day effort is not a trivial pursuit.
Patient Safety Awareness Week is promoted by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. Founded in 1991, the organization is comprised of healthcare experts and practitioners whose goal is reducing preventable medical errors. It offers help to providers and healthcare treatment facilities in developing better ...
The number of medical malpractice lawsuits with multi-million-dollar payments to victims has risen significantly over the last 10 years in the United States.
That’s one of the findings in a recently released study of medical malpractice lawsuits by CRICO Strategies, “Medical Malpractice in America: A 10-year Assessment with Insights.” CRICO Strategies insures Harvard University medical institutions.
Researchers reviewed 124,000 medical malpractice lawsuits between 2007 and 2016; about 30 percent of all claims filed in that timeframe. The report notes that these ...
Medical errors constitute the third leading cause of death in the United States. It’s been estimated that a doctor’s misdiagnosis is the most serious of all preventable medical errors.
The impacts of misdiagnoses are felt widely every day. According to the Society to Improve Diagnosis in Medicine, 12 million Americans are affected by diagnostic errors each year. And a third suffers serious harm from a misdiagnosis.
Wrong, Delayed or Missed Diagnosis
That harm comes from three types of misdiagnoses – delayed, wrong or missed diagnosis. The difference between a wrong ...
Electronic logging devices that record truckers’ working hours were legally mandated in December 2017 in an effort to reduce fatal truck crashes. While more commercial truckers are now adhering to federal hours of service rules, more apparently are engaging in other risky driving behaviors and so the number of catastrophic trucking accidents hasn’t fallen.
Fatigued truckers can cause serious crashes. That’s why the maximum hours they can work during the week – as well as rest periods – are limited by federal law. Until late 2017, commercial truck drivers recorded their ...
Speed kills.
Speeding accounted for 37 percent of the people killed in Missouri motor vehicle accidents in 2017, the most recent year for which data is available. Only eight other states had more traffic deaths due to speeding drivers than Missouri that year. Illinois, at 42 percent, was one of them.
The Governors Highway Safety Association, a consortium of state safety officials, recently published a report on the dangers of speeding drivers, “Speeding Away from Zero: Rethinking a Forgotten Traffic Safety Challenge.” Nationwide, according to the GHSA report, 26 percent of ...
Electronic health records, technology to help make healthcare safer, may be causing a serious medical error harming young patients.
An electronic health record (EHR) is a modern update to patient charting, replacing paper with digital technology. A patient’s medical history, including past diagnoses, medical tests, and treatments, is captured. Theoretically, an EHR offers the potential for reducing mistakes and a better comprehensive treatment plan.
Wrong Medication Dosage
One of the items included in an EHR is a patient’s medications. Medication errors, which include ...
Research and investigative evidence have shown that driver error is the leading cause of fatal truck crashes. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, the agency responsible for regulating the safety of the U.S. trucking industry, updated its safety tips to commercial truck drivers last fall on its website. These tips only amplify the fact that careless big rig driver action can turn deadly.
Distracted Commercial Truck Driver
The first tip is to pay attention to the road ahead. Unfortunately, when truckers are distracted and lose focus on traffic, too often calamity ...
Medical errors that harm patients can be caused by poor communication between healthcare providers and patients and their families.
That’s the conclusion of a recently released study published online by BMJ (“Patient Safety after Implementation of a Coproduced Family Centered Communication Programme: Multicenter Before and After Intervention Study”).
Patient Handoffs and Medical Mistakes
The study is an extended look at I-PASS, which is a communication model for healthcare providers to follow during patient handoffs. At this time, doctor and nurses who are ending ...
More than nine out of every 10 people who died in 2017 U.S. transportation accidents were killed in highway fatal motor vehicle crashes.
In November, the National Transportation Safety Board issued a snapshot report on last year’s deaths in railroad, aviation, waterway and motor vehicle accidents. In 2017, nearly 40,000 people died in accidents involving these modes of transportation. Highway deaths accounted for 37,133 fatalities – 95 percent of all U.S. transportation deaths that year.
Fatal Commercial Truck Crashes Increased
The NTSB broke down highway deaths even ...
Though you probably are not aware of it, the first week of December is National Handwashing Week. While this may seem like an innocuous observance, improper handwashing can be a negligent, live-threatening act.
Hospital-acquired infections are a serious and common form of preventable medical errors. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, each day one out of every 31 U.S. hospital patients contracts an infection while receiving care.
Types of Serious Infections That Hospital Patients Suffer
Such infections are typically carried by a virus, bacteria or ...
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