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Safety Indicators (safety + indicator)
Selected AbstractsThe Relationship between Patients' Perception of Care and Measures of Hospital Quality and SafetyHEALTH SERVICES RESEARCH, Issue 4 2010Thomas Isaac Background. The extent to which patient experiences with hospital care are related to other measures of hospital quality and safety is unknown. Methods. We examined the relationship between Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems scores and technical measures of quality and safety using service-line specific data in 927 hospitals. We used data from the Hospital Quality Alliance to assess technical performance in medical and surgical processes of care and calculated Patient Safety Indicators to measure medical and surgical complication rates. Results. The overall rating of the hospital and willingness to recommend the hospital had strong relationships with technical performance in all medical conditions and surgical care (correlation coefficients ranging from 0.15 to 0.63; p<.05 for all). Better patient experiences for each measure domain were associated with lower decubitus ulcer rates (correlations ,0.17 to ,0.35; p<.05 for all), and for at least some domains with each of the other assessed complications, such as infections due to medical care. Conclusions. Patient experiences of care were related to measures of technical quality of care, supporting their validity as summary measures of hospital quality. Further study may elucidate implications of these relationships for improving hospital care. [source] Hospital Patient Safety Levels among Healthcare's "Most Wired" InstitutionsJOURNAL FOR HEALTHCARE QUALITY, Issue 2 2010Feliciano Yu Abstract: Our study compared adverse patient safety events among hospitals that have received the distinction "Most Wired" as rated by the Hospital and Health Network publication versus comparison hospitals. Risk-adjusted Patient Safety Indicators (PSIs) were calculated for 558 general adult medical/surgical hospitals participating in the Agency for Healthcare Quality and Research's Nationwide Inpatient Sample. When compared using mean risk-adjusted PSI rates, no significant differences in performance for specific PSIs were observed between hospitals affiliated with the "Most Wired" label and those without the designation using objective measures of safety. [source] Safety walkarounds predict injury risk and reduce injury rates in the construction industryAMERICAN JOURNAL OF INDUSTRIAL MEDICINE, Issue 6 2010K.L. Mikkelsen MD Abstract Background "Safe Workplace",a simplified and educational version of the Finnish building construction methodology involving safety walkarounds where a number of safety indicators are inspected and evaluated,is in widespread use in the Danish construction sector to evaluate physical safety standards proactively at construction work sites. Methods Data from the construction of the Copenhagen Metro were analyzed to determine the method's ability to predict injury risk related to joint responsibilities and individual worker responsibilities. Results A statistically significant association between the risk level as measured by the Safe Workplace methodology and injury risk was found. The relative risk of injury increased with the number of safety indicators violated and was elevated for safety indicators reflecting both individual and joint safety responsibility. The observed injury risk was not elevated in the post-safety walkaround period for safety indicators of individual responsibility, but the joint responsibility indicators retained an elevated injury risk level. Conclusions The data support the hypothesis that safety walkarounds both predict and prevent injuries. Safety indicators of individual responsibility are more likely to be corrected than those of joint responsibility. Am. J. Ind. Med. 53: 601,607, 2010. © 2010 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source] Validity of the indicator ,death in low-mortality diagnosis-related groups' for measuring patient safety and healthcare quality in hospitalsINTERNAL MEDICINE JOURNAL, Issue 4 2010S. Mihrshahi Abstract The indicator ,death in low-mortality diagnosis-related groups (DRG)' is a patient safety indicator (PSI) that can be derived from routinely collected administrative data sources. It is included in a group of PSI that have been proposed to compare and monitor standards of hospital care in Australia. To summarize the attributes of this indicator as a measure of quality and safety in healthcare and examine issues regarding the development process, definitions and use of the indicator in practice. A structured literature search was conducted using the Ovid Medline database to identify peer-reviewed published literature which used ,death in low-mortality DRG' as a quality/safety indicator. Key quality websites were also searched. The studies were critically appraised using a standardized method. A total of 12 articles was identified which met our search criteria. Most were of low methodological quality because of their retrospective study designs. Only three studies provided evidence that the quality of care gap is higher in ,deaths in low-mortality DRG' than in other cases. Most of the studies reviewed show that there are several limitations of the indicator for assessing patient safety and quality of care. The few studies that have assessed associations with other measures of hospital quality have shown only weak and inconsistent associations. Higher quality, prospective, analytic studies are required before ,death in low-mortality DRG' is used as an indicator of quality and safety in healthcare. Based on current evidence, the most appropriate use is as a screening tool for institutions to quickly and easily identify a manageable number of medical records to investigate in more detail. [source] Safety walkarounds predict injury risk and reduce injury rates in the construction industryAMERICAN JOURNAL OF INDUSTRIAL MEDICINE, Issue 6 2010K.L. Mikkelsen MD Abstract Background "Safe Workplace",a simplified and educational version of the Finnish building construction methodology involving safety walkarounds where a number of safety indicators are inspected and evaluated,is in widespread use in the Danish construction sector to evaluate physical safety standards proactively at construction work sites. Methods Data from the construction of the Copenhagen Metro were analyzed to determine the method's ability to predict injury risk related to joint responsibilities and individual worker responsibilities. Results A statistically significant association between the risk level as measured by the Safe Workplace methodology and injury risk was found. The relative risk of injury increased with the number of safety indicators violated and was elevated for safety indicators reflecting both individual and joint safety responsibility. The observed injury risk was not elevated in the post-safety walkaround period for safety indicators of individual responsibility, but the joint responsibility indicators retained an elevated injury risk level. Conclusions The data support the hypothesis that safety walkarounds both predict and prevent injuries. Safety indicators of individual responsibility are more likely to be corrected than those of joint responsibility. Am. J. Ind. Med. 53: 601,607, 2010. © 2010 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source] Rail Safety: Targeting Oversight and Assessing ResultsPUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REVIEW, Issue 1 2008Jeremy F. Plant Rail safety has emerged as a significant issue in the past two years as a result of two major factors: a statistical lack of improvement in rail safety in the past decade, and a catalytic event in the form of a major derailment involving loss of life at Graniteville, South Carolina, in January 2005. The convergence of long-term leveling of rail safety indicators and the shock of a major rail accident prompted the Senate Appropriations Committee to ask the Government Accountability Office to assess the oversight role of the Federal Railroad Administration, the modal agency of the U.S. Department of Transportation charged with overseeing rail safety. The report is a reminder of the continuing importance of regulatory activities and the general movement in federal management toward greater use of data and performance measures since the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993. [source] | ||||||||||