Issue link: https://beckershealthcare.uberflip.com/i/1173622
17 INFECTION CONTROL & PATIENT SAFETY Preventable harm affects 1 in 20 patients By Anne-Marie Kommers O ne in 20 patients experiences preventable harm in healthcare, according to a meta-analysis published July 17 in the BMJ. Researchers analyzed data from 70 observational studies involving 337,025 patients from sources such as Medline, PubMed and Google Scholar. They found a pooled proportion of 12 percent of preventable patient harm inci- dents were severe or fatal. They also found preventable patient harm was more common in intensive care or surgery compared with general hospitals. "There are limited quality improvement practices specifically targeting incidents of preventable patient harm rather than overall patient harm (pre- ventable and non-preventable)," the study's authors wrote. They suggested developing these practices could improve care quality and cut costs. n Why vaccine stock photos are getting a makeover By Mackenzie Bean T he American Academy of Pediatrics collaborated with SELF magazine to create stock photos that offer a more accurate, positive perception of childhood vaccinations. Existing stock images for vaccines are often medically inaccurate, depicting improper technique or the use of incorrect syringes, AAP noted. The images also commonly depict children crying while receiving the vaccines, which can promote fearmongering. SELF magazine consulted with AAP to create medically accurate photos of vaccinations using real physicians. The photos will be available to download for free under a Creative Commons license. n OIG: Mississippi VA hospital hired surgeon despite malpractice concerns By Anne-Marie Kommers M anagement at Biloxi, Miss.-based Gulf Coast Veterans Health Care System hired a thoracic surgeon in 2013 despite knowing he had a history of licensure and malpractice issues, according to a report from the Office of Inspector General cited by e Sun Herald. Staff members discovered the surgeon's past in 2017, which triggered the OIG investigation. "Facility leaders did not have a clear under- standing of the requirements for reviewing the surgeon's care provided," the report said. e decision-making process that led to hiring the surgeon was undocumented. Hospital leaders placed the surgeon on "surgi- cal pause" in October 2017 and tried to hire an external proctor to evaluate him. e surgeon then resigned. Hospital management removed the surgeon "without following required processes, including notifications to external reporting agencies," the report said. Failure to follow these processes led to a delay in reporting to a state licensing board and meant the surgeon could not be reported to the National Practitioner Data Bank. e report comes aer the OIG cited the facility in March 2018 for a patient's death in the inten- sive care unit, which lacked full-time intensivist coverage. e new report includes 19 recom- mendations for the local VA director and puts the regional Veterans Integrated Service Network 16 in charge of overseeing implementation. "We appreciate the Office of Inspector Gener- al's oversight, which focuses on an individual who no longer works for VA and events that occurred more than two years ago," Cindy Dorfner, the VA's chief of public affairs, told Becker's in an email. She noted several changes the Biloxi health system has made since the OIG first made recommendations in 2018, which include reviews to ensure all providers are in good standing and implementation of a tracking tool to closely monitor all licensure/ certification/registration/malpractice actions for providers. n