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Study: Clinicians using workarounds when operating EHRs
Scott E. Rupp Healthcare AdministrationThe majority of U.S. hospitals have implemented electronic health records (EHRs). While the benefits of EHRs have been widely touted, little is known about their effects on inpatient care, including how well they meet workflow needs and support care. Despite the proliferation of the technology, there appears to be a high degree of variance in the ways care teams use EHRs during morning rounds. There are a high number of workarounds clinicians employ at critical points of care. Additionally, the EHRs are not used for information sharing and frequently impede intra-care team communication. These points are the results from a new study published by PLOS.org.
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How to protect yourself from blood clots during business travel
Lisa Mulcahy Medical & Allied HealthcareHow much do you know about deep vein thrombosis (DVT) and pulmonary embolism (PE)? Both of these conditions can result if you develop a blood clot — a risk for business travelers who sit for long periods on a plane, train, or in a car. The CDC reports that as many as 900,000 Americans will suffer a blood clot this year. Also according to the CDC, DVT can form in your legs during travel because you are sitting still in a confined space for long periods of time — specifically, four hours or more. Life-threatening problems can occur when a part of the blood clot breaks off and travels to the lungs, becoming a PE, which can cause a fatal blockage. What other essential information do you need to know about protecting yourself from clots while you travel?
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Teamwork: A crucial healthcare engine
Keith Carlson Medical & Allied HealthcareHealthcare delivery revolves around the cooperation, coordination, and seamless teamwork of multiple individuals, many of whom are highly skilled and educated. Patients are not cared for in a vacuum, and every member of a robust team must play their part in order for outcomes to be as positive as possible. For optimal healthcare delivery, teams are at the center of the universe and each member is an essential star contributing their own light. Making those stars shine as one is the ultimate goal of any successful team.
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Study on marijuana, male reproductive health spawns misleading conclusion
Dr. Denise A. Valenti Medical & Allied HealthcareEver hopeful to report positive aspects related to marijuana use, writers often leave out key points. As an example, a report from a Boston-based publication had the following headline, "Harvard researchers link smoking marijuana with higher sperm concentration.” It further concluded, "Experts say men who smoked marijuana have significantly higher concentrations of sperm than those who have never lit up." The report describes the work with research participants, "…scientists collected 1,143 semen samples from 662 mostly college educated white men." What the media report left out was the description that appeared in the published research, "…This longitudinal study included 662 subfertile men."
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What is Safety II? New opportunities for safety leadership
Christina Thielst Healthcare AdministrationResearchers in Europe may have defined and given structure to the challenges associated with safety. Their white paper on Safety I vs. Safety II highlights where scientific methods, standardization, root cause analysis and reliability alone fall short. They assert that safety needs to progress beyond a bimodal model to employ multiple approaches for reducing error/failure and achieving fully resilient systems. Safety I, as experienced today, is the push to eliminate all accidents, system failures and injury. Safety II recognizes that medicine and healthcare processes are not an exact science and that there is sometimes an art to caregiving.
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ADA partners with National Institutes of Health for opioids webinar
Tammy Hinojos Oral & Dental HealthcarePrescription opioid abuse remains a dangerous and growing problem in America. Every day, more than 115 Americans die after overdosing on opioids, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The ADA is hosting an opioids webinar on Wednesday, April 3, featuring the National Institutes of Health. Called "NIH Response to the Opioid Crisis from a Research Perspective," the webinar will take place from 3-4 p.m. EST.
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Are your doctors asking patients the right questions?
Lisa Mulcahy Healthcare AdministrationIn healthcare, you know how crucially important good doctor-patient communication is. So are the doctors in your organization shedding enough light on the key information needed to make an accurate diagnosis every time? It's vital for doctors to utilize the best verbal and nonverbal forms of communication in order to determine what each patient needs. The good news: research has focused on how doctors can perfect their Q&A skills so they get the patient the accurate info they need. Suggest that your organization's physicians put this advice into practice.
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Physician-only social network surveys how physicians really feel about…
Tammy Hinojos Medical & Allied HealthcareSeveral social media platforms are facing public scrutiny over their role in promoting misleading health information, especially relating to the anti-vaccination movement, which many experts say has contributed to the outbreak of contagious illnesses, like measles, in areas around the country. At a time where it seems everyone (who wants one) has a platform, there is a global need for medically and scientifically accurate information from reliable sources to help inform public health knowledge. SERMO is a leading social network for over 800,000 fully verified and licensed physicians around the world. When it comes to the anti-vaccination movement, SERMO surveyed its community to find out how physicians really feel.
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A blood test to measure pain
Dorothy L. Tengler Medical & Allied HealthcareWhether acute or chronic, most of us have dealt with pain. In 2016, 20 percent of adults in the United States had chronic pain, and 8 percent had pain that limited at least one major life activity. The state of the art of pain measurement right now is a pain scale that was invented decades ago. However, a new University of Pittsburgh study shows that physicians may soon be able to quantify pain with a simple blood test. Researchers have developed a test that objectively measures pain biomarkers in the blood.
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Drug combo may make organ, tissue matching unnecessary
Chelsea Adams Medical & Allied HealthcareTissue-matching means organ recipients have a better chance of a successful transplant, but patients will still need to take anti-rejection medications, possibly for the remainder of their lives. While effective, these drugs can cause the body's immune system to be vulnerable to infection, and they often have unpleasant side effects. However, a new study offers evidence that an antibody-drug conjugate may serve the same purpose as traditional anti-rejection drugs. Led by a Stanford University physician, the research team found that the conjugate eliminates blood-producing stem cells in mice. To this point, only anti-rejection drugs have kept the production of stem cells at bay.
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