Temp ED nurses a safety threat to patients, study shows
Patient Safety Monitor Alert, August 31, 2011
Want to receive articles like this one in your inbox? Subscribe to Patient Safety Monitor Alert!
Temporary emergency department (ED) nurses who are unfamiliar with their surroundings may inadvertently be a threat to the patients they serve, according to new research from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
The study found that the temporary help was twice as likely as permanent staff to be involved in medication errors in the hectic and fast-paced environs of the ED. However, the study's authors stressed that temporary nurses should not necessarily be blamed for those shortcomings, which the researchers said are complex and diffuse.
"A place that uses a lot of temporary staff may have more quality of care issues in general," study leader Julius Cuong Pham, MD, an assistant professor of anesthesiology and critical care medicine and emergency medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, said in a media release. "It may not be the temporary staff that causes those errors but a function of the whole system."
Want to receive articles like this one in your inbox? Subscribe to Patient Safety Monitor Alert!
Related Products
-
Patient Safety Monitor
As part of your Patient Safety Monitor membership, you'll receive Briefings on Patient Safety. In this 12-page monthly...
-
Patient Safety Monitor Alert
This e-mail newsletter provides healthcare professionals with the latest patient safety news, while offering useful...
-
Occurrence Reporting:
Take advantage of the information occurrence reports provide and make sustainable enhancements at your facility. Expert...
-
Violence in Healthcare: Proven Strategies to Keep Your Facility Safe
Despite Joint Commission Sentinel Event Alerts and OSHA guidance, violence in healthcare is on the rise. Your workplace...
-
Transform Your ED into a Profit Center
As the major source of admissions, your ED is poised to be a serious revenue driver, or drain. Get in-the-trenches...
Most Popular
- Articles
-
- Featured blog post: Nurses face felony charges after reporting physician to the Texas Medical Board
- Topic: CMS, OESS post new security compliance review information, checklist
- Q/A: Volume requirement for reporting hydration services
- HIPAA Q&A: Answering service messages
- News and briefs: Oklahoma Osteopathic Association against residency bill change
- What does case-mix index mean to you?
- QA:Coding multiple initial infusions
- State medical board will hear unprofessional charges against OB-GYN
- OB services: Coding inside and outside of the package
- Capturing all necessary codes for IUD insertion and removal can be challenging
- E-mailed
-
- Featured blog post: Nurses face felony charges after reporting physician to the Texas Medical Board
- Are your workforce members texting PHI?
- Don't let these sentinel events trigger falsely
- Arkansas woman convicted for HIPAA violation
- Q/A: Coding infusions to correct low potassium levels
- Q&A: Coding for protein malnutrition
- Q&A tackles coding questions about injections and infusions
- Joint Commission Center announces handoff communication solutions
- Inside best practice: Reduce patient falls with a stoplight
- Identify modifiable risk factors to prevent patient falls
- Searched