Performing the Wrong Procedure
What to do when the wrong procedure is performed? In this first installment of JAMA Performance Improvement: Do No Harm we explore the options for dealing with this very difficult problem with Tami...
View ArticleEnsuring Staff Safety Against Violent Patients
Violence against health care workers is increasing. With fewer mental health services available, health care workers have disproportionate exposure to potentially dangerous patients. This article...
View ArticleManaging Patients With a Latex Allergy
Latex allergy is common and usually benign but at times can be life-threatening. What can clinicians do to minimize the risk of serious complications attributable to latex allergy? We interview Cynthia...
View ArticleRetained Foreign Body From a Sheared Off Lumbar Drain
A resident is asked to remove a drain that was placed in the lumbar space during an operation. Having never seen this sort of drain before not having removed one, the resident proceeded to remove the...
View ArticleMedication Errors in Hospitals–-It’s Everyone’s Fault
A patient was admitted to the hospital and got three times their normal dose of phenytoin resulting in phenytoin toxicity and a long hospital stay. Analysis of the error revealed problems with hospital...
View ArticleAvoiding Wrong-Site Surgery
There are about 500 wrong-site surgeries performed in the United States every year. Simple maneuvers can minimize the risk for these occurring. This JAMA Performance Improvement podcast reviews a case...
View ArticleWhat to Do When There Is an Overdose of Insulin
It is very easy to confuse drug concentrations and vials containing different amounts of drugs in the hospital setting. It is not uncommon to have dosing errors occur. In this podcast, we discuss how...
View ArticleThe Not-So-Good Idea of Sedating Patients Who Have Obstructive Sleep Apnea
One-third of the US population is obese. Obesity is a major risk factor for obstructive sleep apnea. This condition is very common, and patients with sleep apnea are at risk of major complications from...
View ArticleEMRs Gone Bad: How Order Sets Can Result in Medication Errors
One promise of electronic medical records (EMRs) was to reduce medication errors. That may not have occurred since one type of error, illegible orders, has been replaced by another: Order sets may...
View ArticlePoof – It’s Gone – The Disappearing Order That Led to a Patient Getting an...
Electronic health records are the bane of most clinicians’ existence. They were supposed to help us but not only have they made life more difficult for clinicians, they are the cause of medical errors....
View ArticleHow to Reduce Emergency Department Dwell Time
Chaos in the emergency department is common. How to fix it is not always clear. Mary P. Mercer, MD, MPH, from the University of California, San Francisco, discusses how they successfully fixed their...
View ArticleThe Aging Clinician: When Should Older Clinicians' Cognitive Abilities Be...
More than a third of the physician workforce is older than 60 years, and 10% are older than 70 years. Cognitive abilities may decline with age but how cognition affects clinical practice is unknown. It...
View ArticleThe Aging Clinician: When Should Older Clinicians' Cognitive Abilities Be...
As physicians age, they experience the inevitable decline of cognitive and physical function. It is not clear how that affects clinical practice. Jeffrey Saver, MD, vice chair of neurology at UCLA and...
View ArticleImproving Management of Elevated Liver Function Tests in Post Liver...
There are hundreds of thousands of liver transplant patients, all of whom will be seen in general clinical practices. It is common for them to develop elevated liver enzymes—a potentially serious...
View ArticleA Better Way to Manage Chronic Medical Conditions in Homeless Emergency...
Homeless patients with chronic medical conditions who need long-term care often repeatedly present to emergency departments to receive treatment. Following a performance improvement analysis,...
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