Authored by Dr. Mackles
Presented by The Sullivan Group
Technology Revolution: Improving Patient Safety, Reducing Liability – CME (2.0 Hours)
The Technology Revolution is well underway throughout all sectors of the healthcare industry, as it is throughout all of society. Healthcare is, and remains, one of the most pressing challenges facing our nation (and the world) in the 21st century. Almost any discussion related to improving healthcare, whether it implicates improving patient safety and satisfaction or reducing costs, in most cases has technology as a core component. Technology, in and of itself, will not solve all of the issues facing healthcare. But when used appropriately, healthcare technology will contribute to highly efficient process/system improvement, enhanced patient safety, reduced risk and cost management.
11 Simple Strategies to Prevent Medication Errors – CME (2.0 Hours)
Medication is a significant component of the healthcare system. You cannot watch television without being inundated with advertisements for prescription and over-the-counter medications. Healthcare practitioners and institutions depend on a safe and efficient medication delivery process to ensure patient safety and well-being. This course identifies specific problems with the medication delivery process that lead to preventable medical errors, and offers 11 simple but highly effective strategies to significantly improve patient safety and reduce practitioner liability.
Essentials of Patient Safety – CME (2.0 Hours)
Healthcare professionals have an obligation to themselves, their patients, and their industry to practice and provide the very best medical care in the safest possible manner. The reality of today’s healthcare system is that many of the same medical errors are repeated, and this exposes healthcare providers to unnecessary patient safety and legal risks. Unfortunately, most traditional medical training programs did not adequately prepare physicians and nurses to deal with the epidemic of medical errors. The promising news is that many, if not most, of these errors can be easily avoided or eliminated altogether. In this activity, we introduce the emerging and necessary shift away from traditional methods of error analysis to a systems approach to patient safety. We discuss easy-to-implement tips and strategies that providers can use to significantly reduce medical errors and limit risk exposure. We also discuss patient safety technology.
Handoffs, Transitions & Discharges: Key Moments in Patient Care – CME (2.0 Hours)
Today’s complex healthcare system relies on handoffs and transitions to move patients and their personal medical information through a maze of providers and institutions. Literally thousands of hospital handoffs and transitions occur each day. Unfortunately, and all too often, healthcare handoffs are catalysts for communication errors that result in significant adverse events and patient harm. Medication information, in particular, is at risk of being miscommunicated or omitted at points of patient transition. In addition, one of the most pressing patient safety topics of our time is the need to reduce unnecessary hospital readmissions. With the advent of healthcare reform, institutions with elevated hospital readmission rates are being put at a financial disadvantage for reimbursement purposes. In this activity, we outline communication and process related challenges associated with healthcare handoffs, transitions, and discharges, and provide strategies and techniques to help improve communication, decrease patient risk, and reduce liability, risk, and costs. After completing this activity, practitioners should be able to: use a standardized handoff technique (such as SBAR) to improve communication during handoffs/transitions; employ basic steps to reconcile medications across the continuum of a patient’s care; and plan a hospital discharge conversation that includes all of the pertinent information necessary to insure a safe departure from the hospital and successful follow-up, as well as confirmation of patient understanding of key directives.
Prevention of Medical Errors – CME (2.0 Hours)
For centuries, providers have practiced medicine by following the age-old Hippocratic rule of “Do no harm.” Unfortunately, and all too often, preventable medical errors and patient harm are caused not by bad intentions or insufficient training, but by flaws in the healthcare delivery system and processes used by providers. For decades, the medical community has been plagued with medical mistakes and unnecessary mishaps that are repeated time and time again. The good news is that by acknowledging and correcting the real causes of many medical errors, a new system of patient safety processes can be designed to reduce errors, improve quality care, and decrease provider liability. In this activity, we cover frequently observed categories of medical errors and offer specific solutions for error reduction and prevention. Among the types of errors discussed are surgical, medication, communication and teamwork, transition and handoff, as well as errors related to patient safety technology. We also discuss the emerging and necessary shift away from “Traditional” methods of error analysis to a “Systems” approach to patient safety and outline the stepwise process of Root Cause Analysis (RCA). After completing this activity, practitioners should be able to: use the Universal Protocol to prevent common surgical errors, such as wrong-patient, wrong-site, and wrong-procedure events; employ strategies to prevent medication errors; and illustrate how the process of RCA can be used after a sentinel event to make effective changes in the healthcare delivery system.
Communication Strategies to Improve Patient Safety in High-Risk Situations – CME (2.0 Hours)
A comprehensive review of medical literature reveals that communication errors are a major cause of mortality and morbidity. In this activity, we cover areas of high-risk practice that are particularly prone to communication errors. We discuss strategies and technological advances that have been shown to prevent many common errors and improve the quality of patient care. In addition, we teach simple communication techniques to enhance the quality and effectiveness of interactions and conversations between healthcare providers and their patients. After completing this activity, practitioners should be able to: recognize and prevent common healthcare communication errors; illustrate how a handoff technique such as SBAR can be successfully prepared for a clinical handoff; and employ strategies to improve provider-patient communication.