Fw: New report lists rules to ensure patient safety did I send this needs read?

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Thanks to gigi* for this informative article!

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Martha Murdock, DirectorNational Silicone Implant Foundation | Dallas Headquarters"Supporting Survivors of Medical Implant Devices"4416 Willow LaneDallas, TX 75244-7537

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Sent: Sunday, May 18, 2003 12:16 AM

Subject: New report lists rules to ensure patient safety did I send this needs read?

New report lists rules to ensure patient safety

Last Updated: 2003-05-16 12:34:27 -0400 NEW YORK - In an effort to cut down on medical errors, a coalition of leading health care and consumer groups released a consensus report on Thursday detailing 30 safety practices that should be used in hospitals and other health care settings.The report was released in Los Angeles during a meeting of the National Quality Forum."We know that modern health care is an exceedingly complex, high-risk, error-prone activity," Dr. W. Kizer, president and CEO of the National Quality Forum, said during a media briefing. The non-profit National Quality Forum is a public-private partnership whose 173 members -- including the American Medical Association, AARP, and the Ford Motor Company -- represent consumer groups, employers, provider organizations, health plans and other health care stakeholders.The Institute of Medicine (IOM) reported in 1999 that medical mistakes are killing as many as 100,000 Americans each year and injuring many thousands more."There are ways that we can prevent those errors from occurring," Kizer said, calling the new report a "road map for safety."The report is not just intended for hospital personnel. Consumers can benefit from it in many of the same ways as doctors, administrators and managers, Kizer said. He explained that people can use the 30 safety practices as a checklist to evaluate their local hospitals. The number one safety practice listed in the report is that hospitals and other patient care settings should "create a health care culture of safety" by prioritizing and analyzing situations in which patient safety is threatened.Other guidelines include the recommendation that pharmacists be actively involved in the medication-use process. For instance, they should be available for consultation with prescribers.Another recommendation is that, whenever possible, verbal orders should be recorded and read back to health care providers to guarantee accuracy. In addition, when health care providers discuss "informed consent" -- the process in which a patient agrees to have a certain treatment after weighing the risks and benefits -- with patients, they should ask patients or their legal surrogates to repeat what they were told.The recommended safety practices primarily target hospitals, but many are also applicable to nursing homes and doctor's offices, Kizer told reporters. For example, the safety practice requiring health care workers to repeat verbal orders back to the person who issued them could prevent medical errors in a doctor's office as well as in a hospital, Kizer said. Although the report is new, many of the safe practice guidelines have already been put into practice. Dr. Dennis O'Leary, president of the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations said during the briefing that most of the 30 practices are already either partially or wholly reflected in the Joint Commission's current standards or its national patient safety goals, or relate, in some way, to the commission's initiatives. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and several other foundations and national organizations funded the National Quality Forum's report.giginsif..http://www.reutershealth.com/archive/2003/05/16/eline/links/20030516elin013.html