Issue link: https://beckershealthcare.uberflip.com/i/1173622
53 QUALITY IMPROVEMENT & MEASUREMENT Leapfrog: Most hospitals don't meet surgical volume standards for safety By Mackenzie Bean M ost hospitals do not meet The Leapfrog Group's surgical volume standards, which outline the minimum number of surgeries a hospital must report annually to limit the risk of patient harm, according to the group's 2019 Inpatient Surgery Report. e report is based on data submitted by more than 2,000 hospitals for Leap- frog's 2018 hospital survey. Leapfrog assessed hospitals' compliance to its surgical volume standards for the fol- lowing high-risk procedures: • Bariatric surgery for weight loss • Carotid endarterectomy • Esophageal resection for cancer • Lung resection for cancer • Mitral valve repair and replace- ment • Open abdominal aortic aneurysm repair • Pancreatic resection for cancer • Rectal cancer surgery Leapfrog found hospitals were most likely to meet full volume standards for bariatric surgery. However, com- pliance was still low at 38 percent. Hospitals had the lowest compliance for open abdominal aortic aneurysm repairs at 2.5 percent. Urban hospitals also outperformed ru- ral hospitals in meeting surgical volume standards for all eight procedures. n 49% of healthcare professionals feel equipped to achieve zero harm By Mackenzie Bean N early 2 million healthcare professionals do not feel they have the re- sources and training needed to achieve zero harm in their workplace, according to a new survey from The Joint Commission Center for Transforming Healthcare. True Global Intelligence conducted the survey on behalf of the center, polling 1,050 healthcare professionals via on online survey between April 29 and May 3. Four survey findings: 1. A majority (96 percent) of healthcare professionals said they were "fully committed" to zero harm. 2. Only 49 percent of respondents strongly agreed they had the resources needed to reach zero harm. 3. Eleven percent of healthcare professionals said they did not feel equipped to achieve zero harm. This figure equates to nearly 1.98 million people na- tionwide based on the CDC's estimate that 18 million Americans work in the healthcare field. 4. Twenty-one percent said they felt their individual role in the industry was too small to influence zero harm. n More than half of adverse surgical events due to human error, study finds By Anne-Marie Kommers M ore than half of adverse surgical events are due to human error, meaning those events could have been prevented, according to a study published July 31 in JAMA Network Open. Researchers collected data from three adult teaching hospitals over six months. The hospitals performed over 5,300 surgeries during this period, 188 of which resulted in adverse events, including death and major compli- cations. Of the 188 adverse events, more than 50 percent, or 106, were due to human error. The researchers also organized the errors by type. They were surprised to find that errors related to communication, teamwork and systems were rela- tively low. In contrast, over half of the errors were cognitive, involving lack of attention, lack of recognition and cognitive bias. "This means our efforts to optimize communication, teamwork and system-re- lated safety in our work culture have succeeded," said James Suliburk, MD, associate professor of surgery at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston and the study's first author. To further decrease preventable medical errors, the study authors recom- mends healthcare organizations shift their focus to cognitive training and teach medical staff to recognize their own mental pitfalls. n