Nursefriendly.com: Patient Deaths

Friday, April 29, 2011

Nurses Long Work Hours, Scheduling Can Increase Patient Mortality

A new study has found that patient deaths from pneumonia and acute myocardial infarction were significantly more likely in hospitals where nurses reported schedules with long work hours. The finding was just one of several revelations from a study of nurses' work schedules, patient outcomes, and staffing led by University of Maryland School of Nursing researchers in collaboration with researchers at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

The study is the latest in ongoing research on nurse scheduling and staffing funded by the National Council of State Boards of Nursing. In the current study, Alison Trinkoff, ScD, MPH, RN, FAAN, professor at the School, and co-authors Meg Johantgen, PhD, RN; Carla Storr, PhD, MPH, RN; Yulan Liang, PhD; Ayse Gurses, PhD;and Kihye Han, MD, RN shifted their focus from the effects on nurses in previous studies to patient well-being.

The team linked patient outcome and staffing information from 71 acute-care hospitals in two representative states (Illinois and North Carolina) with the survey responses of 633 randomly selected nurses who worked in these hospitals. Their findings are published in "Nurses' Work Schedule Characteristics, Nurse Staffing, and Patient Mortality," in the January/February issue of the journal Nursing Research. Most U.S. hospitals use 12-hour nursing shifts exclusively, as opposed to eight-hour shifts, a trend begun during nursing shortages nationwide in the 1980s. "Although many nurses like these schedules because of the compressed nature of the workweek, the long schedule?as well as shift work in general?lead to sleep deprivation," says Trinkoff.

via infectioncontroltoday.com

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Monday, April 4, 2011

Hospital Acquired Infections Becomes A Leading Cause In Patient Deaths | OneMedPlace

Patients today are between a rock and a hard place because when they get sick a hospital may be the last place they want to go. Hospital Acquired Infections, also known as Healthcare-associated infections (HAI) are the 4th leading cause of patient deaths, killing 270 people per day in the USA. Recently the Federal Government and Payers are implementing incentives and penalties on hospitals that are not doing all they can to reduce HAIs.

HAIs are defined as infections not present and without evidence of incubation at the time of admission to a health care setting. Within hours after admission, a patient’s flora begins to acquire characteristics of the surrounding bacterial pool. Most infections that become clinically evident after 48 hours of hospitalization are considered hospital-acquired. Infections that occur after the patient is discharged from the hospital can be considered healthcare-associated if the organisms were acquired during the hospital stay. There have been several cases of patients going into the hospital for minor surgeries and coming out in coffins, yet limited media coverage has been devoted to this area of concern.

Healthcare-associated infections can be localized or systemic, can involve any system of the body, be associated with medical devices or blood product transfusions. Three major sites of healthcare-associated infections are bloodstream infection, pneumonia, and urinary tract infection. HAIs result in excess length of stay, mortality and healthcare costs. In 2002, an estimated 1.7 million healthcare-associated infections occurred in the United States, resulting in 99,000 deaths. In March 2009, the CDC released a report estimating overall annual direct medical costs of healthcare-associated infections that ranged from $28-45 billion.

via onemedplace.com

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