Smart Healthcare Safety from ECRI

This is a special episode produced in conjunction with our colleagues in ECRI's Partnership for Health IT Patient Safety. The Partnership is working with EHRA to explore how health IT can help integrate behavioral health and primary care. This podcast is the second part of our conversation. During that first discussion , we spoke about how many Americans with behavioral health conditions receive t...

In this episode, we're talking about bone graft substitutes—a type of device that can lead to a lot of confusion among purchasers and providers because of all the varieties available. These substances are used as alternatives to autologous bone grafts in orthopedic procedures such as filling of bone voids, arthrodesis (i.e., bone joint fusion), repair of bone fractures, or healing of bone surround...

This is a special episode produced in conjunction with our colleagues in ECRI's Partnership for Health IT Patient Safety. ​The Partnership is convening a workgroup to derive safe practices to reduce CPOE alert fatigue through monitoring, analysis, and optimization. John McGreevey, MD, University of Pennsylvania, and Adam Wright, PhD, Vanderbilt, are the collaborators co-chairing the workgroup. In...

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the need for drastic social distancing measures included banning visitors at most nursing homes throughout the U.S. in an attempt to protect some of the most vulnerable among us. That ban, however, carried with it a real emotional burden for persons served and families unable to visit their loved ones, not to mention facility staff. In this episode, we're talking abou...

We all want answers to critical questions such as: How much longer will the SARS-COV-2 pandemic last? Is social distancing working? Are the tests reliable? Do any treatments work? The world is swimming in SARS-COV-2 scientific data rushed to publication even before peer review. In this episode, we're talking about some of the statistical models used to try to understand the future of the pandemic....

Recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows more than 700 women die each year from childbirth-related complications in the United States—and more than half of these deaths are preventable. Another 50,000 women experience serious birth-related complications. The U.S. has the highest maternal death rate among the world's developed nations, and that rate is rising, even as i...

Recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows more than 700 women die each year from childbirth-related complications in the United States—and more than half of these deaths are preventable. Another 50,000 women experience serious birth-related complications. The U.S. has the highest maternal death rate among the world's developed nations, and that rate is rising, even as i...

Whether from fear of contracting coronavirus, commitment to social distancing recommendations, hesitation to burden a stressed healthcare system—or all of the above—many people are avoiding needed medical care during the COVID-19 pandemic even in the face of potentially life-threatening emergencies. In this episode, we're talking about the need for patients to still seek and receive routine and em...

Alarm safety has been a recognized problem in healthcare for more than a decade. A component of that is alarm fatigue—a situation when a provider, frustrated by nuisance alarms that may not be actionable, eventually starts ignoring alarms that are important and actionable. Alarm fatigue ultimately puts patient safety in jeopardy. In this episode, we'll talk about why this problem has persisted, th...

This episode is part of a special series in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.  In this episode, we're talking about some of the first steps healthcare organizations are taking in resuming more normal operations—a necessary process but one that can be fraught with risk for patients and providers alike. We’ll discuss the planning necessary to resume care, as well as one critical step that most re-o...

This episode is part of a special series in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.  COVID-19 brings an enormous set of challenges to aging care facilities around the country. In this episode, we're talking about the role of transparency and notifications following adverse events in aging services. We’ll discuss why these practices are key in building trust with residents and families, as well as how t...

This is a special episode produced in conjunction with our colleagues in ECRI's Partnership for Health IT Patient Safety. The Partnership is working with EHRA to explore how health IT can help integrate behavioral health and primary care. Many Americans with behavioral health conditions receive their behavioral care from their primary care providers—in fact, we estimate that one in five primary ca...

In this episode, we're talking about measuring safety culture in healthcare, particularly in light of an updated Culture of Safety Survey released by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). The changes affect how organizations will be able to use the results of past surveys to track their own growth and how they'll be able to compare results to AHRQ's national database. We'll talk a...

In this episode, we're talking about COVID-19, the disease caused by a novel coronavirus that originated in the Chinese city Wuhan. Now designated a public health emergency by the World Health Organization and the U.S. Department for Health and Human Services, as of the time of this recording, the virus has been associated with tens of thousands of cases and more than two thousand deaths. We'll di...

In this episode, we’re talking about the new affiliation between ECRI Institute and the Institute for Safe Medication Practices, or ISMP. We first announced this affiliation in November 2019 and made it official in January 2020 —and now we're excited to look ahead with the two organizations' leaders at the impact we can have together to improve healthcare quality and safety. ECRI President and CEO...

A new wave of wearable health technology includes compact, personal-use blood pressure devices, such as wrist-worn activity-tracking devices, or as small handheld devices. These products are available in the consumer market and are typically interfaced with a smartphone application. The app provides a platform to record and store blood pressure measurements and to share the data with a physician....

In this episode, we're talking about postincident investigations, which are a crucial part of a risk and safety program in any healthcare setting. The primary purpose of the initial investigation of an incident or near miss is to collect facts, which the organization will later analyze with the ultimate goal of improving care and services. Thus, thorough investigations are the foundation of effort...

Access to accurate, up-to-date drug allergy information is a vital component to effective, safe, and timely patient care. This information comes directly from patients and from information contained in the electronic health record. Recommendations available to improve drug-allergy information to prevent adverse events have not been widely implemented. The safe practice recommendations are availabl...

In the world of risk management, we often talk about what providers should document when they care for patients, like the details of the patient's vital signs, to ensure the patient record is complete and accurate. In this episode of Smart Healthcare Safety from ECRI Institute, we're answering recurring questions we get from members regarding other aspects of medical record maintenance—like what t...

In this special episode produced in conjunction with the Partnership for Health IT Patient Safety, we look at safe practice recommendations for opioid prescribing. The United States is in the midst of a deadly opioid use epidemic, which we see contributing to a decline in U.S. life expectancy. To help reverse this trend, ECRI Institute and the HIMSS Electronic Health Record Association (EHRA) reco...

Surgical staplers are complex medical devices, and ECRI Institute has warned of potential risks for nearly a decade in our Top 10 Health Technology Hazard reports and in more than 40 hazard and alert notifications; our Accident and Forensic Investigation team has reviewed cases of staplers jammed on tissue or otherwise involved in patient injury. Despite these concerns, the U.S. Food and Drug Admi...

A hospital room design contest led to so many ideas for reducing infection risk that there was no winner. Instead, competing architecture firms worked together to put patients first and make sure that all the best ideas were put into place. In this episode, ECRI Institute's Mark Macyk, a Risk Management Analyst, shares details about the contest and which steps to take to reduce infection risk in p...

A March 2019 warning from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration highlights a vulnerability in certain implanted cardiac devices, raising concerns that these lifesaving devices could be susceptible to malfunctions caused by hackers. In this episode, ECRI Institute's Juuso Leinonen, Senior Project Officer, and Chad Waters, Senior Cybersecurity Engineer, discuss the scope of the risk, steps providers...

  In this episode of Smart Healthcare Safety from ECRI Institute, we're talking with two ECRI Institute experts about endoscope reprocessing. Inadequate reprocessing of flexible endoscopes led to 30,000 patients being called for follow-up testing between 2005 and 2012, according to one estimate . Contaminated endoscopes can spread infections like HIV and hepatitis B and C, and even in the absence...

In this episode of Smart Healthcare Safety from ECRI Institute, we're talking with two ECRI Institute experts about patient violence in healthcare. Patient violence is a problem that sits at the intersection of worker and patient safety, potentially affecting anyone who works in, is treated in, or visits a healthcare facility. The issue is enough of a concern that it has appeared on ECRI’s Top 10...