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Showing results for tags 'Patient'.
Found 1,311 results
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Content ArticleThis video is based on research interviews with acute medical patients and examines how staff and patients in hospital can create safe care together. It includes quotes from real-life patient experiences and highlights the importance of listening to and reassuring patients, and involving them in their care.
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Content ArticleIn this BMJ article, Caitríona Cox and Zoë Fritz argue that outdated medical language that casts doubt, belittles, or blames patients jeopardises the therapeutic relationship and is overdue for change.
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Content ArticleThis guide is designed to support healthcare providers when talking to patients about the use of of oxytocin to start or advance labour.
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Content Article
Who killed patient safety? (5 May 2022)
Patient Safety Learning posted an article in Research, data and insight
The medical communities commitment to patient safety has withered over the past 10-15 years after the original call for action in 2000 with the release of the IOM report. What was once a call for action, safety in hospitals and oversight by government has been deprioritised, defunded, and devalued, leaving patients like the authors of this article wondering: What happened to patient safety? -
Content ArticleThis infographic accompanies the TeamSTEPPS for diagnosis improvement course from the US Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ).
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Content ArticleIn 2015, the ruling of the UK Supreme Court in Scotland in the case of Montgomery v Lanarkshire Health Board fundamentally changed the practice of consent. According to the Judges in this case, doctors are no longer the sole arbiter of determining what risks are material to their patients. They should not make assumptions about the information a patient might want or need but they must take reasonable steps to ensure that patients are aware of all risks that are material to them. The Royal College of Surgeons has developed guidance on consent that sets out the principles for working with patients through a process of supported decision-making, and a series of podcasts that illustrate those principles in practice.
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Content ArticleThese tools and resources from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) accompany the NICE guidance on Hypothermia: prevention and management in adults having surgery. Resources available for download include: Audit and service improvement baseline assessment tool Implementation support advice document Education information Shared learning information Practical steps to improving the quality of care and services using NICE guidance
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Content ArticleThis article looks at the benefits and process of prewarming patients before surgery, in order to maintain normothermia (a normal, safe temperature) throughout the peri-operative process. Increasing the patient's core temperature helps prevent hypothermia later on in surgery, reducing the need to deal with temperature issues during and after surgery. The author highlights the link between warming and patient safety and describes different approaches that can be taken for different lengths and types of surgical procedure.
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Content Article70,000 people in the UK are living with pulmonary fibrosis. Action for Pulmonary Fibrosis has the information, support and stories to help you live a healthier life with pulmonary fibrosis.
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Content ArticleFor people who have been diagnosed with dementia, accessing post-diagnosis support can be challenging, particularly when the systems meant to provide support are confusing, limited or in some areas, non-existent. The World Alzheimer Report 2022 looks at the issues surrounding post-diagnosis support, a term that refers to the variety of official and informal services and information aimed at promoting the wellbeing of people with dementia and their carers. This report explores the aspects of living with dementia following diagnosis, through 119 essays written by researchers, healthcare professionals, informal carers and people living with dementia from around the world. These expert essays are accompanied by the results of a survey carried out in May 2022, with responses from 1,669 informal carers in 68 countries, 893 professional carers in 69 countries and 365 people with dementia from 41 countries.
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Content ArticlePicker, an international charity working across health and social care, have published the results of their National Cancer Patient Experience Survey. Almost 60,000 people responded to the survey, which was coordinated by Picker on behalf of NHS England and conducted between October 2021 and February 2022. The survey included people aged 16 years and over with a confirmed primary diagnosis of cancer and who had been treated in hospital between April and June 2021.
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Content ArticleAfter more than a decade and half of trying – unsuccessfully – to deal with her fibromyalgia through opioids, Louise finally decided that one way or another, she was going to have to manage her pain another way … In Louise’s words: “I got my life back – I’m living proof that there really is life after opioids!”
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Content ArticleClosed-loop communication—when every test result is sent, received, acknowledged and acted upon without failure—is essential to reduce diagnostic error. This requires multiple parties within the healthcare system working together to refer, carry out tests, interpret the results and communicate them in language the patient can understand. If abnormal test results are not communicated in a timely manner, it can lead to patient harm. This Quick Safety case study looks at the case of a 47-year-old school teacher who had a screening mammogram. The radiologist identified a suspicious area of calcifications, which required follow up. The patient’s GP was not on the same electronic medical record (EMR) as the imaging centre and, because of front office changes, missed the notification to follow up. The patient was told that the radiologist would contact her if the results were abnormal and therefore assumed she was okay. A year later when seeing her GP, the patient was told that she needed follow-up testing and that she had stage 3 cancer. Her lesion had grown significantly, and she now required surgery, chemotherapy and radiation for advanced breast cancer. The case study suggests safety actions that should be considered to prevent this error from happening again.
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Content ArticlePatients are becoming increasingly involved in their health through technology such as health apps, and regulators are already struggling to control the market without constraining innovation. Clinical Safety must therefore adapt to the ever-changing world of health apps, if it is to fulfil its purpose and ensure that only the safest technologies are used by patients. In this blog, GP Tom Micklewright looks at some of the safety issues relating to health apps. He highlights that unlike with other new systems, health apps are rarely deployed in a controlled environment, which can cause problems when trying to apply clinical safety standards to them. He looks at five of the issues health apps can cause for safety teams: Intended scope and use Updated health apps Clinical safety, health apps and AI Different places, different features Monitoring clinical safety He then offers some potential solutions to these problems: Continuous assessment of health apps Centralise clinical safety, don’t localise Differentiated approach to clinical safety Aggregated incident reporting
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Content ArticleLife expectancy for people with a mental illness diagnosis is 15–20 years less than those without, mainly because of poor physical health. This article in the Journal of Paramedic Practice highlights the fact that mental ill health affects a significant proportion of paramedics' patients, and argues that practitioners could assess and promote patients' physical health even though contact time is limited.
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Content ArticleA systematic review and meta-analysis from Hodkinson et al. examines the association of physician burnout with the career engagement and the quality of patient care globally. A joint team of British and Greek researchers analysed 170 previous observational studies of the links between burnout among doctors, their career engagement and quality of patient care. Those papers were based on the views and experience of 239,246 doctors in countries including the US, UK and others in Africa, Asia and elsewhere globally. This meta-analysis provides compelling evidence that physician burnout is associated with poor function and sustainability of healthcare organisations primarily by contributing to the career disengagement and turnover of physicians and secondarily by reducing the quality of patient care. Healthcare organisations should invest more time and effort in implementing evidence-based strategies to mitigate physician burnout across specialties, and particularly in emergency medicine and for physicians in training or residency. Read accompanying BMJ editorial here.
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Content Article
Symptoms of pancreatic cancer (Pancreatic Cancer UK)
Patient Safety Learning posted an article in Cancers
Pancreatic Cancer UK has produced this infographic on recognising the symptoms of pancreatic cancer. -
Content ArticleOn 25 March 2020, Hannah Davis was texting with two friends when she realized that she couldn’t understand one of their messages. In hindsight, that was the first sign that she had COVID-19. It was also her first experience with the phenomenon known as “brain fog,” and the moment when her old life contracted into her current one. She once worked in artificial intelligence and analysed complex systems without hesitation, but now “runs into a mental wall” when faced with tasks as simple as filling out forms. Her memory, once vivid, feels frayed and fleeting. Former mundanities—buying food, making meals, cleaning up—can be agonisingly difficult. For more than 900 days, while other long-COVID symptoms have waxed and waned, her brain fog has never really lifted.
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Content ArticleCall 4 Concern is a patient safety initiative enabling patients and families to call for immediate help and advice when they feel concerned that they are not receiving adequate clinical attention. Here is the University Hospitals Dorset Trust's leaflet.
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Content ArticleCall 4 Concern is a patient safety initiative enabling patients and families to call for immediate help and advice when they feel concerned that they are not receiving adequate clinical attention. Here is the University Hospitals Sussex Trust's leaflet.
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Content ArticleCall 4 Concern enables patients, relatives and carers to call for help/advice from the Acute Intervention Team when they are concerned about a patient’s condition, and/or they feel that their concern is not being addressed by the ward team. County Durham and Darlington share their Call 4 Concern leaflet.
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Content ArticleThe aim of the project was to introduce and evaluate a Call for Concern (C4C) service that provides patients and relatives with direct access to the Critical Care Outreach (CCO) team, to give patients and relatives more choice about who they can consult with about their care, and facilitate the early recognition of the deteriorating ward patient. The project involved two phases: a six month pilot phase to evaluate the C4C service for feasibility, and its effects on patients, relatives and the health care teams. a three month phase implementing the C4C service onto two surgical wards to test and evaluate the findings of the feasibility phase in preparation for expansion to all hospital wards. Between 1st Sept 2009 and 23rd Sept 2010, the CCO team received 37 C4C referrals representing 0.5% of total CCO activity. Critical deterioration of a patient was prevented in at least two cases, and the service received positive feedback from patients and relatives. In the words of a relative, C4C provided: ‘…a better quality of care…and…reduces the risk of death.’
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Content ArticleCall for Concern is a patient safety service for adult inpatients, families and friends to call for help and advice if you or your family are concerned that there is a noticeable change or deterioration in condition. This service is delivered by the Critical Care Outreach team who are available 24 hours a day to help support ward teams in the care of acutely ill patients. We also offer emotional support to patients and their families who have recently been discharged from the Critical Care Unit as this can be an anxious time. When can I call? After you have spoken to the ward team or doctor but feel the healthcare team are not recognising or responding to your concern. If you have been a patient in Critical Care and are experiencing difficulties such as anxiety, bad dreams, low mood or feeling emotional.
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Content ArticleThis study in JAMA Network Open aimed to investigate how often patients who read open ambulatory visit notes perceive mistakes, and what types of mistakes they report. The results of the study showed that: 1 in 5 patients who read a note reported finding a mistake 40% perceived the mistake as serious the most common mistakes reported were mistakes in diagnoses, medical history, medications, physical examination, test results, notes on the wrong patient and sidedness. The authors suggest that patients may perceive important errors in their visit notes, and inviting them to report mistakes may be associated with improved record accuracy and patient engagement in safety.
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Content ArticleThis editorial in BMJ Quality & Safety looks at the need for urgent improvement in the test result management and communication process in primary care. The authors highlight the inconsistency in tracking and communicating test results and look at potential solutions to reduce the patient safety risks associated with test results. They look at the evidence surrounding automated alerts built into provider IT systems and giving patient direct access to test results through apps, highlighting the growing importance of patients in safeguarding their own care through actively pursuing test results.
