WIHI Free Audio Event Today

Later today, the Institute for Healthcare Improvement will be hosting one of their WIHI free audio events, "Always Events^®: Raising Expectations for Patient Experience​". This event will start promptly at 2pm EST and will feature the following presenters:

Lucile O. Hanscom, Executive Director, Picker Institute

Dale Shaller, MPA, Principal, Shaller Consulting Group

Martha Hayward, Lead for Public-Patient Engagement, Institute for Healthcare Improvementl;

Gaye Smith, Chief Patient Experience and Service Officer, Vanderbilt University Medical Center

Anthony M. DiGioia, MD, Founder, The Orthopaedic Program and Innovation Center, Magee-Womens Hospital of UPMC

Click here to register for the event.

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Group Launches Online Tool to Help Nurses Avoid 'Never Events'

Health care information services provider Elsevier has developed an online tool designed to help nurses prevent the 10 "never events" identified by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Healthcare IT News reports. The tool, which will be available on Elsevier's Mosby's Nursing Consult Web site, was developed in response to a CMS decision in 2008 to cease reimbursing for adverse events that could have been prevented if specific evidence-based protocols had been followed. To create the tool, Elsevier researchers paired each of the 10 never events with the relevant articles, reports, monographs and studies. Nurses can use the tool to search for a never event and review a complete definition, evidence-based nursing content, book excerpts, journals, guidelines, patient education, images and relevant news. Elsevier's online tool includes information on all 10 never events, including catheter-associated urinary tract infection, foreign objects retained after surgery, air embolism, blood incompatibility, stage III and IV pressure ulcers, falls and trauma, manifestations of poor glycemic control, vascular catheter associated infection, surgical site infection and deep vein thrombosis/pulmonary embolism. In addition, the online tool includes decision-making guidance for six conditions—including delirium, ventilator-associated pneumonia, Staphylococcus aureus septicemia, Clostridium difficile-associated disease, Legionnaire's disease and iatrogenic pneumothorax—currently being considered by CMS for inclusion on the never events list. According to the president of Mosby MCS, a business unit of Elsevier Health Sciences, "nurses have a powerful role to play in ensuring that hospitals are paid appropriately for their services," and the company is "proud to support nurses in improving the safety and quality of care they provide, not just to Medicare patients but to all the patients and family members they treat and care for." (Manos, Healthcare IT News, 8/11/09)


(c) RWJF, 2009

NICHE Web Based Learning Series Presents: "The Never Events Series: The Experts Respond"

Followers of this blog may be interested in an upcoming web event sponsored by NICHE:

The Never Events Series: Focus on Physical Restraints

For the past 15 years, U.S. regulatory and accrediting agencies have launched major initiatives aimed at restraint reduction/elimination in all health care settings, including hospitals. Despite these regulatory pressures, physical restraint use remains a common practice, especially in critical care settings. As a CMS regulated hospital condition of participation, there is financial imperative to reduce physical restraint use, while maintaining patient safety and preventing avoidable complications. Drs. Minnick and Mion will host a detailed discussion of how to utilize evidence based best practices to reduce physical restraints within acute care settings.
Drs. Minnick and Mion have collaborated extensively on research specific to physical restraint use in hospital settings. Their authoritative work has informed current understanding of the influence of patient characteristics, care processes, work force and environment and administrative factors upon practices related to the use of physical restraints.

Ann Minnick, PhD

Ann Minnick, PhD, RN, FAAN is the Associate Dean of Research & Chenault Professor of Nursing at Vanderbilt University School of Nursing (VUSN). Internationally recognized as an accomplished health services researcher, Dr. Minnick is also Director of the Center for Research Development and Scholarship (CRDS) at VUSN. Additionally, she serves on the National Advisory Council on Nurse Education and Practice (NACNEP). Dr. Minnick has led numerous national grants that have influenced the environment of nursing practice and has consulted with education and service institutions as well as state, federal and international projects. Her current research concerns are issues related to health service delivery, nursing human resources and patient-centered care.

Lorraine Mion, PhD

Lorraine C. Mion, PhD, RN, FAAN is the Independence Foundation Professor of Nursing at Vanderbilt University School of Nursing. A nationally recognized nursing researcher, she has helped shaped health care practices and policies related to the hospitalized older adult by involvement in the Joint Commission Task Force on Physical Restraints and as an adviser to the Society of Hospital Medicine for Geriatric Care. Her research and practice has focused on hospital-based interventions to minimize use of physical restraints in non-psychiatric settings and identification of risk factors (patient-, nurse- and unit-level) for patient-initiated therapy disruption in critical care settings. A senior advisor to the NICHE program at the New York University College of Nursing NICHE program, she continues to provide consultation on program and resource development, as well as essential, ongoing support to both senior and fledgling NICHE sites.

Click here to register.

Tuesday, July 21, 2009 Time: 1:30 p.m. - 2:30 p.m. EST

NICHE Sites $89 per phone line (Discount Code:nich09jul)
Non-NICHE Sites $99 per phone line