Quality and Safety

Blood is a precious commodity nationwide, and often wasted. At University of Missouri Health Care, the mean red blood cell transfusion rate is now 22.4 percent below the original baseline rate. The medical director of transfusion services explains how that was accomplished.

The lights, deployed at UC San Diego Health by BIOS, help with circadian entrainment to boost staff alertness and its wavelengths can improve visual check-ups for elderly patients, the company says.

The CMS Artificial Intelligence Health Outcomes Challenge stems from the Trump administration's recent call to boost AI innovation in the U.S.

ThreatConnect VP Andrew Pendergast discusses infosec automation and orchestration, the value of external threat intelligence and skepticism about AI.

The health system saved money by avoiding equipment purchases and reducing rental expenses; RTLS also saved it $300,000 and more than 10,000 staff hours annually.

Agreeing to the same format for demographic data would boost patient safety, according to research from Indiana University and Pew.

Israeli infusion system specialist Q Core Medical has opened a new European hub in Marseille, France, to capitalise on growing demand for its smart pumps in both hospital and ambulatory care settings. The European HQ will be led by country manager Laurent Schektman, who said that the location was the doorway to the French and European healthcare markets. “France is especially ready for Q Core’s level of infusion system innovation,” he said. “With a growing elderly population, an increased need for infusion and a 5 to 10 percent increase in patients being treated in homecare settings rather than hospitals, France has a real market need for intuitive, easy-to-use and reliable infusion systems.” Q Core’s Sapphire infusion pumps provide lightweight, advanced and intuitive infusion systems that can be used in a range of IV therapies, including pain management, oncology drug delivery, epidural infusion, parenteral nutrition and antibiotic treatments. What’s the impact? France’s healthcare system reflects the global shift of moving patients from hospitals into homecare settings, and has seen a 40 percent year-on-year growth in patients receiving homecare treatments over the past four years. Q Core Director Shaul Eitan said that advanced reimbursement models have done a very good job of creating a relatively lucrative proposition for private companies to participate in the provision of ambulatory homecare in France. With its touch screen and ease of use, the Sapphire infusion pump is already popular with homecare pharmacies. “There are not that many small ambulatory pumps out there, and we have established good market traction since we introduced our first models in 2013,” he said. “We see a lot of interest, not just in France but also in Germany, Holland and the UK.” What’s the trend? While data protection regulations continue to inhibit the role of technologies such as infusion systems in the rise of the Internet of Medical Things (IOMT), Eitan said that gathering data about the use and performance of the pumps has been crucial in their development. Every Sapphire pump requires an annual preventative maintenance service, and Q Core takes the opportunity to pull historical data about its use and analysing it to improve new models. In the short term, enhancements will focus on communications functionality, which will benefit both care providers and patients. On the record “There are a lot of potential solutions for communications into the home space,” said Eitan. “The most critical place for data is on the patient adherence side. On the caregiver side it’s about managing capital cost and maintenance. We’re driving to a place where homecare should be going much faster, getting patients out of hospital and making it cost-effective.”

In one initiative, the health system tracked hourly rounding compliance by nursing staff. In just over a year, the health system's hourly compliance rate improved by 78.9 percent.

Analysts see a best-of-breed strategy finding favor, with companies such as Xenex, Ecolab and VigiLanz preferred over Epic and Cerner for their innovative approaches to patient safety surveillance.

Anne Snowdon, with the World Health Innovation Network, and Blain Newton with HIMSS, discuss H-SIMM – the new maturity model for supply chain – and how it can help improve patient safety as well as potentially save health systems billions of dollars.