Viewing articles in the ‘Patient Safety’ topic.
January 6, 2016
NANAIMO, BC. – Island Health is improving medication safety for patients with an Island-wide project to establish a closed-loop medication system at its care locations. The Unit Dose Medication Distribution (UDMD) Project will make a full range of medications available in a ready-to-administer, bar-code-labelled format.
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November 4, 2015
BOSTON – The first study to measure the incidence of medication errors and adverse drug events during the perioperative period – immediately before, during and right after a surgical procedure – has found that some sort of mistake or adverse event occurred in every second operation.
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November 4, 2015
WINNIPEG – The Manitoba government is launching an updated, five-year framework to guide work and further enhance patient safety across the province, Health Minister Sharon Blady (pictured) announced in October. The announcement coincided with the start of Patient Safety Week.
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September 16, 2015
OTTAWA – Patient re-admissions at the Ottawa Hospital have “spiked” as a result of provincial funding cuts, according to the union representing healthcare workers.
Local CUPE 4000, representing about 3,800 healthcare workers in Eastern Ontario, along with Ontario Council of Hospital Unions (OCHU), released figures stating the Ottawa Hospital’s re-admissions increased from 8.8 percent to 9.6 percent between 2009 and 2014.
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August 26, 2015
One year after going live, a project to improve patient safety at 10 hospitals in southwestern Ontario has reduced the number of adverse drug events by 35 percent, an astonishing achievement. “And two of the hospitals have reduced their ADEs by 50 percent,” added Dr. Robin Walker, Integrated Vice President of Medical Affairs and Medical Education at London Health Sciences Centre and St. Joseph’s Health Care London. Read More
May 20, 2015
TORONTO – DebMed, creator of an electronic hand hygiene compliance monitoring system based on hand hygiene standards recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO), announced Canada’s first installation of the system at The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids), in Toronto.
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March 4, 2015
LOS ANGELES – A “superbug” outbreak suspected in the deaths of two Los Angeles hospital patients is raising disturbing questions about the design of a hard-to-clean medical instrument used on more than half a million people in the U.S. every year.
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November 19, 2014
TORONTO – Baycrest Health Sciences has launched a Patient Safety Portal – a central web-based access point to collect, analyze and learn from patient safety incidents. The portal is hosted on Microsoft SharePoint and draws data from both Meditech and the Safety Event Reporting System (SERS).
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October 22, 2014
CHARLOTTE, N.C. – A DebMed-sponsored survey of handwashing practices in Canadian hospitals reveals that despite the prevalence of available electronic technologies, manual methods are still predominately used for tracking hand hygiene. According to the company, that is leading to inconsistency in hand hygiene compliance reporting and leaves patients and clinical staff at risk for infection. Read More
October 8, 2014
VANCOUVER – A quarterly report shows that hand cleaning rates among BC health care staff have exceeded the province’s target of 80 percent for the first time. A provincial target of 80 percent compliance was set by the Ministry of Health, to be reached by March 2015; this target was exceeded in the most recent audit period, April to June 2014.
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