Reducing the Noise from Alerts, Alarms, and Notifications

When technology entered healthcare, so too did alerts. Alerts acted as attention grabbers, reminders, notices of changes in a patient's condition, and warnings about malfunctions or improper funct...

Healthcare Acquired Infection Risks from Worker Fingernails and Polish

Infection prevention is of vital concern right now, and reducing disease transmission between healthcare workers (HCWs) and patients is critical for patient safety.  One source of danger to patient...

Critical Value of Third-Party Expertise for Accident Investigation

Learn about the benefits of utilizing outside experts and the challenges of internal investigations Despite the extraordinary efforts of legislators, grassroots organizations, and individual hea...

Top 10 Patient Safety Concerns 2020

Learn how to identify and address patient safety concerns in your facilities The 2020 edition of our Top 10 list features new topics, with an emphasis on concerns that have the biggest potential im...

ECRI PSO Deep Dive: Safe Ambulatory Care

Strategies for Patient Safety & Risk Reduction Overview For its eighth deep dive analysis, ECRI PSO has extended the focus beyond the hospital to ambulatory care—a setting that represents the l...

Four Ways to Say No to Adverse Drug Reactions

The seeds of an adverse drug interaction can be planted at any point in the care process, by any of the individuals involved. For instance, take a look at these common scenarios: A clinician, over...

The EtO Sterilization Dilemma

Ethylene oxide (EtO) sterilization has been in the news a lot lately, and healthcare has much at stake. According to officials at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), approximately 56% of a...

Safer Opioid Prescribing through Health IT

Editorial Note: This blog was also co-authored by Shari Medina, MD, of Harris Healthcare, chair of EHRA’s Patient Safety Work Group who led the Partnership for Health IT Patient Safety’s workgroup ...

ECRI Data Help Reignite Support for Patient Identifier in Congress

After heart disease and cancer, medical errors are the third leading cause of death in the United States and include misdiagnoses, incorrect anesthesia, delayed treatment, and patient misidentifica...