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Showing results for tags 'Canada'.
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Content ArticleWhat, when, and how often you take your medications are what make up your medication routine. The routine can be confusing if you are taking two or more medications or you need to take medications at different times of the day. When possible, keeping your medication routine simple can help prevent mistakes with medications. This newsletter from SafeMedicationUse.ca shares ideas to help patients simplify and manage their medication routine.
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Content ArticleThe Strengthening Medication Safety in Long-Term Care initiative, funded by the Ontario Ministry of Long-Term Care was established in partnership with the Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP) Canada to address the medication safety-related recommendations in Justice Gillese’s Long-Term Care Homes Public Inquiry Report. The three-year initiative is designed to improve medication management processes, including those intended to deter and detect intentional and unintentional harm in long-term care homes across the province of Ontario. This bulletin provides an overview of the initiative and highlights selected examples of improvement projects completed in the first phase.
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Content ArticleThis bulletin from the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) describes two new in-hospital infections indicators for Clostridium difficile (C. difficile) and Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). It includes a table listing CIHI’s selected patient safety performance indicators and definitions.
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Content ArticleHistorically, patient safety efforts have focused mostly on measuring and responding to harm. However, safety is much more than the absence of harm. Instead, patient safety includes looking at the whole system: its past, present and future in all its complexity. Healthcare Excellence Canada and Patients for Patient Safety Canada held many conversations with users of the health system, people who work in healthcare and safety scientists. The ideas collected suggest a new way of approaching patient safety – where everyone can contribute to creating safe conditions and where harm is more than physical. This discussion guide summarises what has been learned so far and captured in this key statement: Everyone contributes to patient safety. Together we must learn and act to create safer care and reduce all forms of healthcare harm.
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Content ArticleIf you are throwing up, having diarrhoea, drinking less water and/or have a fever, you can become dehydrated. Being dehydrated means your body doesn't have enough fluids. When you're dehydrated, some medications used to treat certain health problems may cause unwanted side effects, such as harm to your kidneys. It is important to have a plan to prevent these side effects in case you should become sick and dehydrated. The authors of this guidance learned about a person who died in hospital as a result of side effects of taking a particular medication while dehydrated. They were taking a diabetes medication called empagliflozin and kept taking the same dose after becoming sick. This medication is helpful for people with diabetes, but it can cause serious side effects if it's taken when the person is dehydrated. This guidance offers advice on how to reduce the risk of side effects from your medications when you are sick and dehydrated.
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Content ArticleIn this blog, Sling the Mesh founder Kath Sansom highlights the variation in medical treatment depending on where you live in the world. Describing patient safety advocacy as "like a giant game of chess—but a hideous version where innocent people get hurt," she describes recent developments in the use of pelvic mesh globally. New Zealand recently suspended the use of a particular type of pelvic mesh at the same time as a Canadian study recommended its use for stress urinary incontinence (SUI). Kath gives a brief history of mesh sling suspension and argues that patient safety needs joined up thinking to protect women around the world.
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Content ArticleSocial movement action for knowledge uptake and sustainability can be defined as individuals, groups, or organisations that, as voluntary and intrinsically motivated change agents, mobilise around a common cause to improve outcomes through knowledge uptake and sustainability. This article in the International Journal of Nursing Sciences shares a concept analysis of social movement aimed at advancing its application to evidence uptake and sustainability in healthcare. The authors concluded that social movement action can provide a lens through which to view implementation science. Collective action and collective identity–concepts less frequently canvassed in implementation science literature–can lend insight into grassroots approaches to uptake and sustainability. The concept analysis resulted in the development of the Social Movement Action Framework.
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EventuntilThis virtual workshop will provide paramedics with background theory and hands-on practice in incident analysis using Root Cause Analysis (RCA) and in proactive risk assessment using Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA). Register
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EventuntilThis virtual workshop will provide paramedics with background theory and hands-on practice in incident analysis using Root Cause Analysis (RCA) and in proactive risk assessment using Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA). Register
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EventuntilThis virtual workshop will provide participants with background theory and hands-on practice in using a multi-incident analysis to analyse a group of medication incidents that share a common topic on day 1 and introduce a novel tool called the Medication Safety Culture Indicator Matrix (MedSCIM) on day 2. Register
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EventuntilThis virtual workshop will provide participants with background theory and hands-on practice in using a multi-incident analysis to analyse a group of medication incidents that share a common topic on day 1 and introduce a novel tool called the Medication Safety Culture Indicator Matrix (MedSCIM) on day 2. Register
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Content ArticleThe Learning Together Evaluation framework for Patient and Public Engagement (PPE) in research is an adaptable tool which can be used to plan and to evaluate patient engagement before, during and at the end of a project. The Learning Together Framework can be used in multiple ways with the purpose of mutual learning and understanding by all partners. It is rooted in seven guiding principles of patient engagement defined by the patient-oriented research community: Relationship building Co-building Equity, diversity and inclusion Support and barrier removal Transparency Sustainability Transformation
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Content ArticleThe Canadian Academy of Health Sciences (CAHS) released its report on health human resources (HHR) in Canada. The report provides key findings designed to inform stakeholders (including governments). The report provides evidence-informed approaches to addressing the current challenges facing the Canadian health workforce. The three overarching themes were identified: support and retention deployment and service delivery planning and development.
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EventuntilThis virtual workshop will provide health care professionals with background theory and hands-on practice in incident analysis using Root Cause Analysis (RCA) and in proactive risk assessment using Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA). Register
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EventuntilThis virtual workshop will provide health care professionals with background theory and hands-on practice in incident analysis using Root Cause Analysis (RCA) and in proactive risk assessment using Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA). Register
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Content ArticleThis systematic review in the British Journal of Surgery aimed to describe types of cognitive bias in surgery, their impact on surgical performance and patient outcomes, their source, and the mitigation strategies used to reduce their effect. The authors concluded that cognitive biases have a negative impact on surgical performance and patient outcomes across all points of surgical care. This review highlights the scarcity of research investigating the sources that give rise to cognitive biases in surgery and the mitigation strategies that target these factors.
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Content ArticleThis study in Brain, Behaviour & Immunity - Health aimed to examine associations between symptomatic Covid-19 history, neurocognitive function and psychiatric symptoms. The authors used cognitive task performance, functional brain imaging and a prospective population survey to conduct the study. Converging findings from laboratory and population survey data support the conclusion that symptomatic Covid-19 infection is associated with task-related, functional imaging and self-reported indices of cognitive dysfunction as well as psychiatric symptoms. In some cases, these findings appear to be more amplified among women than men, and among older women than younger.
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Content ArticleThis systematic review in BMJ Open synthesised evidence on the impacts of insufficient sleep and fatigue on health and performance of physicians in independent practice, as well as on patient safety. The authors also assessed the effectiveness of interventions targeting insufficient sleep and fatigue. The authors found that fatigue and insufficient sleep may be associated with negative physician health outcomes, but concluded that current evidence is inadequate to inform practice recommendations.
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EventuntilThis virtual workshop from the Institute for Safe Medication Practices Canada will provide healthcare professionals with background theory and hands-on practice in incident analysis using Root Cause Analysis (RCA) and in proactive risk assessment using Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA). Register
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EventuntilThis virtual workshop from the Institute for Safe Medication Practices Canada will provide healthcare professionals with background theory and hands-on practice in incident analysis using Root Cause Analysis (RCA) and in proactive risk assessment using Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA). Register
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EventuntilThis virtual workshop from the Institute for Safe Medication Practices Canada will provide healthcare professionals with background theory and hands-on practice in incident analysis using Root Cause Analysis (RCA) and in proactive risk assessment using Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA). Register
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Content ArticleHospital boards generally focus attention on measures to answer questions about risk, such as 'How safe are we now?' They are ultimately accountable for the quality of care delivered in hospitals, and data review is a key component of effective board governance. This editorial in BMJ Quality & Safety highlights the lack of guidance on the most effective format for presenting data to determine progress against key risks and targets. The authors argue that data must not be overly simplified and that charts prepared for boards should include monthly data points in graphic format over a longer period of time. This allows trends to be more visible and denotes whether an observed change is significant, helping hospital boards avoid erroneous conclusions tied to random variation.
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Content ArticleQuestions have been raised as to whether medical masks offer similar protection against Covid-19 compared with N95 respirators. This study in The Annals of Internal Medicine aimed to determine whether medical masks are noninferior to N95 respirators in preventing Covid-19 in healthcare workers providing routine care. The authors of the study conducted a multicentre, randomised, noninferiority trial at 29 healthcare facilities in Canada, Israel, Pakistan and Egypt. The study found that among healthcare workers who provided routine care to patients with Covid-19, the overall estimates rule out a doubling in hazard of PCR–confirmed Covid-19 for medical masks when compared with N95 respirators.
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Content ArticleThis Canadian study in the Journal of Patient Safety describes an initiative that introduced system-wide changes to practice and patient safety culture in a rapid time frame. it looks at the implementation of a 'zero harm' approach to eliminate preventable harm across a wide variety of clinical areas. In less than a year, the intervention increased patient safety incident reporting by 37% while decreasing falls with injury by 39%, pressure injury rates by 37% and central line–associated blood stream infections by 34%.
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News ArticleGreg Price died of complications after testicular cancer surgery, but a review of his case found missed faxes, follow-ups and botched data-sharing ultimately cost the vibrant 31-year-old Alberta man his life. All the missteps in his case meant it took 407 days from his first complaint for Price — an engineer, pilot, and athlete — to be diagnosed with cancer. He died three months after his doctor said he should see a specialist, and while he was being passed between multiple doctors, his health data often was not. Now, his sister, Teri Price, says too little has changed in medical information-sharing in the decade since her brother's death. This, despite a review of his case — the 2013 Alberta Continuity of Patient Care Study — that recommended life-saving changes to the healthcare system to avoid more experiences like his. So, she's fighting to improve the system that she says not only failed her brother, but keeps failing to change. Price says that Canadians assume that their health information is shared between doctors to keep them safe and studied to improve the system, but often, it's not. And medical front-line staff in Canada say problems persist when it comes to sharing everything from patient information to aggregate medical and staffing data. "Information tends to be broken up between the services that patients attend," said Ewan Affleck, a doctor in the Northwest Territories who has spent his career fighting for better data access, and a member of the expert advisory arm of the Pan-Canadian Health Data Strategy Group. "The cohesion and use of health data in Canada is legislated to fail." Read full story Source: CBC News, 17 November 2022
