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Found 2,339 results
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Content ArticleHow is COVID-19 repeating patterns of existing health inequalities? What factors are driving the disproportionate impact of the pandemic on the health of ethnic minority populations? And what needs to happen next? Helen McKenna talks to Natalie Creary, Programme Delivery Director at Black Thrive, and James Nazroo, Professor of Sociology at the University of Manchester.
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Content ArticleThis report, from the Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch (HSIB), provides insight into a current safety risk that was identified on a referral. The referral was about difficulties in identifying clinical deterioration in patients with COVID-19 on general wards. The Royal College of Physicians (RCP) highlighted the issue of rapid deterioration in oxygenation in patients with COVID-19 and how this might relate to the use of early warning scores.
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Content ArticleMore Inclusive Healthcare (MIH) works to positively impact disparities, providing customisable solutions to help teams measure and improve outcomes, enhance cultural responsiveness and strengthen the fault lines. MIH is based in the USA.
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Content ArticleNHS England is pushing plans to introduce a ’call before you walk’ model for accident and emergency by winter. But are the health service and the public ready for such a significant shift? HSJ bureau chief and performance lead James Illman tracks the prospects and progress in HSJ's Recovery Watch newsletter.
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Content ArticleFrom bereavement to job losses, to loneliness and relationship breakdown, the psychological strains caused by the coronavirus crisis have affected our mental wellbeing. The psychological impact of the pandemic is an evolving and complex picture that is unlikely to be fully understood for some time. To help navigate the emerging landscape, the Guardian has collected data on five issues faced by the population to measure what life has been like in Britain over the past four months. The Guardian also spoke to charities providing support to people for insight on the trends behind the data.
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Content ArticleWatch this NHS Confederation webinar which take a closer look at what employers have been doing to support staff wellbeing during the pandemic – and what the future needs to look like in creating the best places to work for everyone. The webinar was chaired by Danny Mortimer, chief executive of NHS Employers and deputy chief executive of NHS Confederation.
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Content ArticleRehab4Addiction have created resources to help increase understanding and awareness of all aspects of coping with the stress of bereavment and the lockdown. With the current COVID-19 pandemic, many people who live with depression are struggling to stay afloat during mandated or self isolation. The aim is that this resource can be one of many stepping stones for those struggling and their loved ones to better understand their situation and lead them to find a safe and supportive environment, especially during the pandemic.
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Content ArticlePatient Safety Learning have been hearing from patients suffering persistent symptoms of COVID-19, that they are feeling abandoned and unsupported. But in this 2-minute Tuesday session, Stephanie O'Donohue, Hub Content and Engagement Manager, asks Long COVID patients about any positive experiences they’ve had with the healthcare system, and ways in which they’ve been made to feel safe.
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Content ArticleBetween 30 June and 5 July 2020, the Royal College of Anaesthetists conducted a survey to assess its members' views on the current preparedness to restart planned services. The results found that doctors are not confident their hospitals would cope with a second COVID-19 surge and that more anaesthetists are suffering mental distress than ever before as morale drops.
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Content ArticleThe COVID-19 pandemic has had an unprecedented impact on the delivery of healthcare services around the globe. This has resulted in important loss of life for our communities, including health professionals that have been exposed to the disease in their workplace. A human factors approach to the recent changes introduced due to the pandemic can help identify how we can minimise the impact of human error in these circumstances. Tejos et al., in Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, present a case study illustrating the application of human factors in the difficult times we are going through at present.
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Content ArticleLea Lane is a US travel writer who hasn’t left her home in over four months, except for medical reasons. Lea gives her own personal account of having coronavirus and the longer term effects it is having on her "Trump has claimed that 99% of cases of COVID-19 are 'totally harmless.' His take is 'live with it.' Many thousands of COVID-19 survivors are unfortunately doing just that, suffering strange, debilitating symptoms that come and go for months after first coming down with the novel virus. Unfortunately we are discovering that the disease can not only be deadly, but chronic — or as sufferers call it, 'long-haul.'
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Content ArticleThe shared commitment and responsibility uniting everyone within and outside of healthcare during the COVID-19 has been unparalleled. Prior to the pandemic, this type of shared commitment has been discouragingly lacking for other major healthcare concerns such as patient safety. Reasons for this include organisational leaders who are incentivised to focus on activities essential for reimbursement and quality measurement rather than those involving the promotion of safety culture and implementation of systems-based approaches to improve safety, compounded by lack of clear ownership and accountability to solve long-standing safety challenges. The COVID-19 pandemic is leading to several ongoing impacts on the healthcare delivery system, many of which have patient safety implications. We are witnessing negative effects from delays in care from patients not seeking (or unable to seek) healthcare, patients with complex chronic conditions not having ongoing ambulatory care and new types of diagnostic errors. However, we are also witnessing some early short-term positive effects in selected safety areas where the COVID-19 pandemic has provided a new glimmer of hope. Singh et al. explore this further in their article in BMJ Quality & Safety.
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Content ArticleImplementation of high reliability principles in healthcare delivery is recognized as an effective strategy for reducing harm to patients and healthcare workers. With the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic upon us, our emergency departments (EDs) are facing an unprecedented safety threat. How does a high reliability ED function during a pandemic, and what are the most important strategies for keeping ourselves and our patients safe? Thull-Freedman et al. discuss this in a commentary in the Canadian Journal of Emergency Medicine.
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Content ArticleAccording to experts, older adults with or without pre-existing chronic conditions are at higher risk of COVID-19 infection and are also more likely to have severe cases requiring intubation, ventilator support, and intensive care. In fact, the CDC reports that about 8 of 10 COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. have been adults over the age of 65 years, with the majority over 85 years of age. The risk of contracting and dying from COVID-19 is an even greater problem in the almost 16,000 U.S. nursing homes, where there are concentrated numbers of older adults with chronic disease and frailty. This PSNet Patient Safety Primer looks at the patient safety problems for older adults.
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Content Article
Professional boundaries are hampering the care of covid patients
Patient Safety Learning posted an article in Blogs
Can we now create a space for interprofessional learning, where trust and respect are born and where clinical skills and clinical reasoning is shared between our professional tribes, asks Lucy Brock in this HSJ article. Lucy works at UCLPartners as the lead for education and simulation. She is also a respiratory physiotherapist and returned to clinical practice to support colleagues on intensive care in March 2020. Regulatory bodies and education systems exist to ensure that patients are surrounded by competent professionals, but the potential of our workforce is unduly limited by their territorial nature and siloed funding. The urgency of a pandemic offered almost no time for creative thinking but we now have a relative reprieve and so a chance to reconsider the limits of professional scope. Can we now create a space for interprofessional learning, where trust and respect are born and where clinical skills and clinical reasoning is shared between our brilliant professional tribes? Might this be key in mobilising a more efficient and agile workforce, better prepared for the next wave? -
Content ArticleResearch by the British Medical Association (BMA) concludes that over a million planned operations and treatments as well as over twenty thousand cancer treatments have been cancelled or delayed between April and the end of June this year because of the pandemic. The Association’s research also estimates that more than two and a half million first time outpatient appointments were cancelled during the same time period. This paper coincides with the BMA’s latest survey of 5,905 doctors in England and Wales, asking about the impact of the pandemic on their patients and their working lives. As part of the survey, they were asked if, within the last week, they had treated patients with conditions at a later stage (e.g. cancer, heart disease) than they would normally expect. A little over 40% said that they had. Behind this data are the scores of patients whose routine surgery or procedure has been put aside in the rush to reconfigure the NHS to cope with COVID-19. Even worse, doctors know there are those whose illnesses are far more serious than they were, some now beyond cure.
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Content ArticleDr Donna Prosser joins Dr Danielle Ofri to discuss the history of medical errors and how they have greatly impacted hospitals during this time of COVID-19.
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Content ArticleThis article, published by The Conversation, highlights the mounting evidence that some people who have had COVID-19 but were not hospitalised, are experiencing prolonged illness. Reported after-effects of the virus include; overwhelming fatigue, palpitations, muscle aches and pins and needles. The author of this article looks at the research to date and talks about using twin studies to gain further insight into 'post-COVID syndrome'.
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Content ArticleMotivated by the COVID-19 pandemic, Perla et al. developed a novel Shewhart chart to visualise and learn from variation in reported deaths in an epidemic.
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Content ArticleA group of doctors who have chronic COVID-19 symptoms have been digesting information on social media platforms from thousands of individuals in the UK and worldwide affected by covid symptoms for 16 weeks or more. Some of these symptoms and patients’ experiences have been summarised in a video “Message in a bottle—long covid SOS.” The announcement of an NHS portal for patients who have been admitted to hospital or dealt with the illness at home is a welcome signal that the problems of long standing covid symptoms are starting to be recognised. In this BMJ article, the authors explore these patients' experiences and urge that the new NHS portal should be co-created with by patients with COVID-19 and carers. There needs to be some bidirectionality in the creation of this service and subsequent research to avoid institutional “top down” blind spots about the condition.
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Content ArticleEarly clinical experiences have demonstrated the wide spectrum of COVID-19 presentations, including various reports of atypical presentations of COVID-19 and possible mimic conditions. This article, published in the BMJ, summarises the current evidence surrounding atypical presentations of COVID-19 including neurological, cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, otorhinolaryngology and geriatric features.
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Content ArticleThis short film was created by patients who are experiencing long-lasting and debilitating symptoms of COVID-19, to raise awareness of their ongoing issues, also known as 'Long COVID'.
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Content ArticleThe study by Traverse aimed to explore the knock-on effects of coronavirus for health and wellbeing in the UK by understanding the experiences of people whose care has been disrupted. It is based on interviews with 12 people in the week beginning 20th April, just after the second 3-week lockdown period was announced in the UK.
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Content ArticleOver 300 health and social care staff died in the UK during the first COVID‐19 wave. There are concerns regarding infection risks but there has been very little discussion or research on personal protective equipment (PPE) design. To understand how PPE changes clinical tasks, Hignett et al. conducted an online survey between (via Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.) 4 April and 8 May 2020, when there was a peak of 33,173 deaths. They focused on human factor/ergonomic issues to avoid preconception bias about availability to ask with regard to fit and comfort, reading and operating equipment, hearing and communicating, reaching and moving, and dexterity to use touch screens, press buttons, open vials/taps and use syringes.
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Content ArticleSafety of patients and surgical teams is paramount when undertaking elective surgery in the initial recovery phase from COVID-19. This tool from the Royal College of Surgeons of England lists key considerations to minimise risks of patients and surgical teams contracting COVID-19 in the hospital.
