March 9, 2007--Special Patient Safety Awareness Week presentation by
PULSE
As you may know, Patient Safety Awareness Week is fast
approaching. What you may not know is that this annual week of
awareness was originally launched by PULSE (Persons United Limiting
Substandards and Errors in healthcare).
In honor of the week and the important role that PULSE has played
in promoting our awareness, Ms. Jeni Dingman from PULSE will be
presenting two short Patient Safety films - with a brief commentary
and time for audience discussion (facilitated by Ms. Dingman and Dr.
Don Parsons).
This event will occur at the COPIC Building on March 9th
at 3:00 PM.
The COPIC Building is
located at 7351 Lowry Blvd in Denver (80230)
The first film is entitled “Team Steps, Strategies & Tools to
Enhance Performance and Patient Safety” This film was created for
Patient Safety Awareness Week, and is part of the “Stand Up”
Hospital Package. The film provides a series of vignettes that
demonstrate learning and teamwork techniques (concordant with
what Dr. Leonard discussed at our conference last year). The
vignettes take the viewer through a different teamwork scenario in
each of five settings as follows:
- Emergency Department
- General Medicine
- General Surgery
- Labor and Delivery
- Physician Office
Next, we will view a film from the World Health Organization entitled
“Patient Safety - Patient Voices”. This provides us with a collection
of first hand accounts of patient and families that have experienced a
medical error. This presentation is most interesting is that it
profiles an international group of participants from many cultures.
2006 Meetings
Health Care
Consumers, Patients and Families Update-
Tuesday- August 22, 2006
We will had two speakers for the
August meeting. Kerry O'Connell from Mortenson Construction spoke on zero tolerance for injury in healthcare based upon his own
experiences with medical error and hospital construction business and
Jennifer Dingman from PULSE of Colorado gave an update on what is
happening nationally and internationally with consumer patient safety.
View Kerry O'Connell's
PowerPoint Presentation
View Jennifer Dingman's PowerPoint
Presentation
Cardiac Alert Cath Lab Direct - Tuesday - June 27, 2006
Swedish Medical Center's, Dylan
Luyten MD EMS Medical Director and Jean Glock RN Director of Cardiac
Cath Lab were the featured speakers. Swedish Medical Center
received a Patient Safety Award for their Cardiac Alert Program in 2005.
Hand Hygiene as a
Patient Safety Priority - Tuesday-May 23, 2006
View
the PowerPoint presentation
Laurie Griffith, RN, Manager of
Infection Control at Denver Health was our featured speaker. This
subject is important because hand hygiene is the most effective way to
prevent transmission of infections, yet No healthcare
institution has been able to demonstrate 100% sustained compliance. Ms.
Griffith directs the infection control program at Denver Health which
has four thousand employees, four hundred inpatient beds and four
Intensive Care Units. Denver Health received a Patient Safety Award for
their Hand Hygiene program in 2005.
2005 Meetings
Stroke
Alert/Management of Low Birth Weight Babies - July 11, 2005
On July 11 we
featured a Seminar dealing with
the
following two
important topics: 1)
The Swedish Medical Center
“Stroke Alert” Program,
and 2)
The
Management of Low
Birth
Weight babies by
Hospitals with Level III Nurseries.
These
informative
presentations
will center on specific approaches
for
improving
patient safety in
hospital settings.
Item 1:
Stroke Alert: The concept of
“Stroke Alert” closely followed the already proven “Cardiac Alert”
implemented at Swedish Medical Center (SMC). This program aims to
identify patients that are at high risk of stroke and provides extensive
training for risk factor reduction as well as how to identify an acute
stroke and take immediate action. The “Stroke Alert” concept is
designed to allow the timely recognition of symptoms in the community,
the rapid assessment by health professionals in order to treat acute
stroke, and improve patient outcomes and safety.
Our discussion was led by Dr.
Don B. Smith and Christy Casper. Dr. Smith has been a practicing
neurologist in Englewood Colorado since 1980. He was the co-Chair of
the Colorado Stroke Advisory Board, which was commissioned by the
Colorado Legislature to report on the status of stroke and stroke care
in Colorado. Ms. Casper is an adult nurse practitioner. As the
coordinator of the program, she is involved in protocol and procedure
development and in the education of medical and nursing staff regarding
acute stroke care.
Item 2: Management of Very Low
Birth weight Babies by Maternal Transfer to Hospitals with Level III
Nurseries: The Colorado Perinatal Care Council supports the
recommendation that every attempt be made to deliver a baby of less than
32 weeks gestation in a hospital with a Level III nursery. Across
Colorado, the majority (56 percent) of very low birth weight births
occur in hospitals that do not have Level III nurseries, yet a Level III
nursery is nearby (within 10 miles). The goal of this policy would be to
have 90 percent of very low birth weight babies born in a hospital with
a Level III nursery (Colorado currently stands at a rate of 74.6
percent).
Our discussion was led by
Barbara Hughes from the Colorado Perinatal Care Council. Ms. Hughes is
a recognized leader in the provision of nurse midwifery at the local,
state and national levels. Joining her was Dr. Mark Brown.
The Federal Role in Health Care
Quality
-
May 24, 2005
The Federal
government has had a pivotal role in health care quality
since the inception of the Medicare and Medicaid
programs in 1965. Originally the primary role was through the
government's insistence of
minimal standards
as a "condition of participation" in Federal programs.
Further significant public protections have been
added
since then in the CLIA, EMTALA and HIPAA
regulations and in the
government's support of
the Quality Improvement Organizations (QIOs). The
QIOs are a
powerful force in improving the quality of
care in many
different settings and for many
different conditions.
In this program, the audience
will learn how the Federal government
fosters
the delivery of quality care and will learn about future
directions for quality in areas
such as facilitation of connectivity,
public
reporting and reward for performance.
JCAHO
- April 7, 2005
The Colorado Business Group on Health (under Donna Marshall's
leadership) is sponsoring a meeting for us
with three key officials from the Joint Commission on Accreditation
of Healthcare Organizations. They will
be providing us with information concerning The new survey process, and
will focus on PATIENT SAFETY AS A PRIORITY (to
include survey components on safety, the consumer portal, and other
topics). Our speakers will be: Kurt A. Patton, Executive
Director, Accreditation Services; Rosemary
Burke, Director External Relations; and Mark
Crafton, Executive Director, State and External Relations.
There is no charge to attend this seminar.
View the PowerPoint
Presentation. 
