Three Lessons Pain Management Teaches Us About Patient Adherence
(This article was first published in the Journal of Patient Compliance; see page 12.) Pain medication is an anomaly in patient adherence. Here the concern is with taking too much and not often enough, which is the usual problem faced in getting patients to take their medication. A common reason why patients seek medical advice … Continue reading
Is going part-way for patient safety good enough?
This is the question that I have been asking myself ever since the Physician-Patient Alliance for Health & Safety posted an article encouraging Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to include continuous electronic monitoring of patients using patient-controlled analgesia (PCA) pumps. “Patient Controlled Analgesia (PCA) pumps” says Pat Iyer, president of www.avoidmedicalerrors.com, “were developed to address … Continue reading
Four Technology Recommendations to Reduce Alarm Fatigue
This article is reprinted with the permission of Patient Safety & Quality Healthcare (PSQH). Improving patient safety is one of the most urgent issues facing healthcare today. PSQH is written for and by people who are involved directly in improving patient safety and the quality of care. According to ECRI Institute, an independent, nonprofit organization that researches … Continue reading
What have you done for patient safety?
Each year, Harvard University hosts one of the leading forums on patient safety, quality enhancement and medical error reduction. This year I attended the forum, The Eleventh National Quality Colloquium, to present on the PCA Safety Checklist, which I developed with a team of health experts and targets use of patient-controlled analgesia (PCA). The PCA Safety Checklist supports … Continue reading
Monitoring Technology for PCA Pumps Can Prevent Adverse Events with Patient-Controlled Analgesia (PCA): So Why Are Hospitals Not Using It?
This article has also been published in SurgiStrategies, which can be read here.) According to its newly-updated, “How-to Guide: Prevent Harm from High-Alert Medication”, the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) looked at high-alert medications, which are “more likely than other medications to be associated with harm”. One of the areas that the IHI singles out is narcotics. The … Continue reading
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