Avoiding Common ICU Errors

Avoiding Common ICU Errors

This pocket book succinctly describes 318 errors commonly made by attendings, residents, interns, nurses, and nurse-anesthetists in the intensive care unit, and gives practical, easy-to-remember tips for avoiding these errors.... read more

Evaluation of Perioperative Medication Errors and Adverse Drug Events

Evaluation of Perioperative Medication Errors and Adverse Drug Events

One in 20 perioperative medication administrations included a medication error (ME) and/or adverse drug event (ADE). More than one third of the MEs led to observed ADEs, and the remaining two thirds had the potential for... read more

Unsafe Nursing Ratios Incapacitate EDs, Endanger Patients

Unsafe Nursing Ratios Incapacitate EDs, Endanger Patients

It's the evening surge at a busy ED where all beds are occupied. Several admitted patients – including 2 critically ill – are waiting for rooms upstairs. A quick glance reveals a full waiting room with multiple potentially... read more

Diagnostic error increases mortality and length of hospital stay in patients presenting through the emergency room

Diagnostic error increases mortality and length of hospital stay in patients presenting through the emergency room

Diagnostic errors occur frequently, especially in the emergency room. Estimates about the consequences of diagnostic error vary widely and little is known about the factors predicting error. Our objectives thus was to determine... read more

Avoiding Common Errors in the Emergency Department

Avoiding Common Errors in the Emergency Department

In a conversational, easy-to-read style, Avoiding Common Errors in the Emergency Department, 2nd Edition, discusses 365 errors commonly made in the practice of emergency medicine and gives practical, easy-to-remember tips... read more

Catastrophic Care: Why Everything We Think We Know about Health Care Is Wrong

Catastrophic Care: Why Everything We Think We Know about Health Care Is Wrong

A devastating and utterly original analysis of what has gone wrong with the American healthcare system. Goldhill explodes the myth that Medicare and insurance coverage can make care cheaper and improve our health, and shows... read more

Could Ultrasound-guided Internal Jugular Vein Catheter Insertion Replace the Use of Chest X-ray?

Could Ultrasound-guided Internal Jugular Vein Catheter Insertion Replace the Use of Chest X-ray?

The implementation of ultrasound protocols during catheter placement has demonstrated multiple advantages that increase accuracy and allow medical teams to reduce operative time, potential complications, and procedure costs.... read more

Over Half Of Patients And Families Hesitate To Raise ICU Safety Concerns

Over Half Of Patients And Families Hesitate To Raise ICU Safety Concerns

Imagine you're in the intensive care unit at the bedside of your loved one, and you think you see a medical mistake — a wrong pill, an unwashed hand. Do you speak up? Even if you're afraid that might annoy or alienate the... read more

Study examines risks of physician burnout

Study examines risks of physician burnout

Medical errors contribute to an estimated 100,000 to 200,000 deaths per year, according to the Institute of Medicine. Burnout — defined as emotional exhaustion or depersonalization — occurs in more than half of doctors,... read more

Critically Ill: A 5-Point Plan to Cure Healthcare Delivery

Critically Ill: A 5-Point Plan to Cure Healthcare Delivery

Two decades ago Dr. Fred Southwick witnessed the near demise of his wife while she was being cared for in a prominent academic medical center. For 15 years he blamed the individual physicians who cared for Mary. However five... read more

Reducing diagnostic errors in the ICU

Reducing diagnostic errors in the ICU

Diagnostic error occurs in 5-20 percent of physician-patient encounters, with a comparable prevalence among ICU admissions and patients who die in the intensive care unit (ICU). Further, diagnostic errors comprise 9-12 percent... read more

Medication Errors Occur in Nearly Half of ICU Transfers

Medication Errors Occur in Nearly Half of ICU Transfers

Almost 50% of patients transferred from the intensive care unit (ICU) to a non-ICU location experience a medication error at the time of transition of care, according to new data. While the majority of these errors did, in... read more

Medical Misdiagnosis: More Common Than You Think

Medical Misdiagnosis: More Common Than You Think

Each year an estimated 12 million Americans get the wrong diagnosis from their doctor--a medical problem is seen as something else, missed entirely or identified late. Most of the diagnostic errors are not about rare diseases,... read more

The Glass Door of the Patient Room

The Glass Door of the Patient Room

Poor communication among health-care providers is cited as the most common cause of sentinel events involving patients. Our goal was to create a novel, easily accessible communication device to improve ICU patient care. Due... read more