Becker's Clinical Quality & Infection Control

12 INFECTION CONTROL & PATIENT SAFETY 1 in 4 seriously ill patients report critical medical error By Megan Knowles N early one in four seriously ill patients said they have experienced a serious medical error, a survey found. e survey was conducted for the Com- monwealth Fund, e New York Times and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston by an independent re- search firm. Interviews were conducted via telephone during July and August among a nationally representative sample of 1,495 adults age 18 or older. e respondents represented seriously ill adults nationally. e survey defined seriously ill U.S. adults in two ways: • Individuals who have had a serious illness or medical condition in the last three years that required several hospital visits and visits to more than one physician. • Individuals who have a close family mem- ber not available to be interviewed who went through this kind of experience in the last three years. Here are four survey findings: 1. Fourteen percent of respondents said a serious medical error happened at a hospital, and 7 percent said it happened at a physician's office or clinic. 2. Hospital care problems seriously ill patients most oen reported were staff not being responsive to their needs (22 percent) and receiving conflicting information from different health professionals (18 percent). 3. About one in five seriously ill patients (21 percent) would not recommend their hospital to another patient with the same medical condition. 4. When looking at the care experiences patients received from several physicians, a significantly small number of seriously ill patients reported significant problems. Twenty-nine percent said they were sent for duplicate tests or diagnostic procedures by different physicians, and 23 percent said they waited too long for treatments, tests and appointments. About one in four (23 percent) also said getting conflicting recom- mendations from different health profes- sionals was a problem. n Hospitals struggle to sustain preparedness for infectious disease outbreaks By Emily Rappleye S ince the Ebola outbreak of 2014, hospitals in the U.S. have dras- tically improved their ability to deal with emerging infectious dis- eases, according to a report from HHS' Office of Inspector General. However, most hospitals voiced concerns about maintaining this level of preparedness. In 2014, 71 percent of hospitals said they were unprepared to receive Ebola patients. Since then, hospitals have updated their emergency plans, trained staff, bought supplies and practiced drills in case of an outbreak. This brought down the proportion of hospitals unprepared for an outbreak like Ebola to 14 percent in 2017, according to the report. However, most hospital administrators — 95 percent — say other priorities reduce their ability to focus on emerging infectious diseases when there is no current threat. "Administrators noted that a focus on any particular threat inherently took time away from other efforts, and that hospitals had to prioritize problems as they emerged," the report states. Admin- istrators named competing threats such as active shooter preparation, natural disaster preparation and everyday infection prevention. Administrators ranked their top challenges to sustaining preparedness: • Staff time — 90 percent • Sustaining staff competency — 87 percent • Competing priorities for resources — 82 percent • Finding time to conduct drills and exercises — 81 percent • Maintaining equipment and supplies — 73 percent • Government guidance was conflicting or impractical — 72 percent n WHO-based intervention increases hand hygiene compliance to 80%+ By Anuja Vaidya A study published in the Journal of Hos- pital Infection examined the effect and sustainability of a multimodal improve- ment program for hand hygiene based on the World Health Organization strategy. Researchers conducted the study at a 450-bed teaching hospital in Switzerland. The improvement program included: • Increasing access to alcohol hand rub • Healthcare worker education • Two-month interval compliance measurement • Hospitalwide open communication about ward-level results, point-of-care reminders, communication via a dedicated in-house newsletter and leadership engagement Researchers gathered data from 33,476 ob- servations, collected from September 2012 to March 2014. They found overall hand hygiene compliance improved from 61.4 percent at baseline to 83.6 percent when the improvement program was implemented. The compliance rate remained at 85.3 percent 18 months after the program. n

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