Becker's Clinical Quality & Infection Control

10 INFECTION CONTROL & PATIENT SAFETY Viewpoint: How hospital workplace bullying harms patient safety By Megan Knowles B ullying, harassment and other unprofession- al behaviors in the hospital workplace can jeopardize patient safety, two authors wrote in e Conversation. e op-ed was written by Johanna Westbrook, PhD, professor of health informatics and patient safety at Macquarie University in Australia, and Neroli Sunderland, PhD, research fellow at the center for health systems and safety research at Macquarie. ree ways workplace bullying jeopardizes patient safety, according to the op-ed: 1. Physician depression and medical errors. Hospital workplace bullying has been linked to depression, anxiety and fatigue in health workers. "ese symptoms, along with stress and poor staff satisfaction at work, leads to higher staff absenteeism, impacting continuity of patient care, and increasing the workload in already overstretched hospital clinics and wards," the authors said. A survey of staff from over 100 U.S. hospi- tals found 71 percent of respondents — primarily nurses and physicians — said unprofessional behavior and poor communication contributed to medical errors. 2. Compromised communication. Anoth- er study found medical teams treated rudely by an "expert observer" performed significantly worse in a simulated situation where they managed a sick infant compared with teams that were treated respectfully. "e teams subjected to rudeness shared less information with each other and didn't seek help as oen. is led to poorer clinical outcomes for the patients in the simulation," the authors said. 3. Poor patient outcomes. "Even more subtle unprofessional behaviors — such as passive aggression, public criticism of colleagues or telling offensive jokes — may interfere with teamwork and the quality of patient care," the authors wrote. A large U.S. study including multiple hospitals found patients' observations of negative behaviors among surgeons could predict poor patient outcomes. n 'Higher than expected' contamination rates found with duodenoscopes after reprocessing By Megan Knowles P reliminary results of the FDA's surveillance studies of duodeno- scopes identified "higher-than-expected" contamination rates after reprocessing. The federal agency said 3 percent of samples collected during the studies tested positive for "low-concern" organisms, which are not likely to cause serious infections, but indicate a "reprocessing failure." An additional 3 percent of samples tested positive for "high-concern" bacteria, which are more often linked to diseases like Escherichia coli and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. The federal agency recommends healthcare facilities that use duode- noscopes closely follow manufacturer reprocessing instructions and consider using extra reprocessing measures to curb the risk for infec- tion transmission, such as microbiological culturing, sterilization and a liquid chemical sterilant processing system. n Indiana VA hospital unveils building for sterilizing surgical tools By Megan Knowles S ix years after the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs tempo- rarily suspended services at its Fort Wayne, Ind.-based hospital for patient care issues, the hospital unveiled a building addi- tion for sterilizing surgical instruments and renovated inpatient areas, according to The Journal Gazette. The VA spent $14 million remodeling the hospital's fourth floor and building the sterile processing service as part of $150 mil- lion worth of projects at the 68-year-old campus, said System Director Michael Hershman. In 2012, the VA suspended all inpatient services in Fort Wayne for over a month for what the VA inspector general called substandard patient care. The inspector general cited staffing shortages, lapses in clinical judgment and leadership failures. Inpatient care was restored in phases over the next year as VA officials took corrective actions to address the issues. The hospital previously sent its surgical, dental and podiatry equipment to its sister facility for cleaning. The local campus had not had instrument sterilization capabilities since the 1990s, said Steve Askew, the hospital's chief of sterile processing. The VA will also start building a primary care floor on top of the sterile processing service this year. n

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