Report on improving hospital safety touts improvement, stresses room for more
Accreditation Connection, March 26, 2007
Hospitals significantly improved the quality of care they provided to patients, but there's plenty of room for improvement, according to a new report from The Joint Commission.
The report, titled Improving America's Hospitals: A Report on Quality and Safety details the performance of accredited hospitals against standardized national performance measures and the Joint Commission's National Patient Safety Goals (NPSGs) from 2002-2005. It found significant improvements in treatments for patients with heart attacks, heart failure, or pneumonia during that period.
For example, the report found that most heart attack patients received aspirin when they arrived at the hospital, but many heart failure patients did not receive proper discharge instructions and necessary follow-up care. Hospital also did a good job using objective methods to identify patients before treatments, but needed to improve on the processes for avoiding medication mix-ups.
The report found that hospital compliance of NPSGs was lowest among the requirement that a "time out" be taken by the surgical team before surgery to confirm patient identity and correct procedure.
During a press conference to announce the findings, Joint Commission President Dennis O'Leary said this noncompliance is a point of frustration and "is an occurrence that should never happen."
He also warned that stricter time out requirements may be in the plan to ensure full compliance to this NPSG.
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