Sunday, February 25, 2007
Sunday Seminole
Section J – Page 1
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Hospitals Agree to Sign Off on Patient Safety Strategies
By Andrea Stanley
Sentinel Staff Writer
Getting medical staff to improve their handwriting may sound like a silly management exercise, but hospital officials see it as critical step toward protecting patients. And it is part of a coordinated effort involving all three hospitals in Seminole County to find ways to make safety a top priority.
Although every hospital is required to have patient safety officers, “nobody has ever pulled together for patient safety, and this has led to an inconsistent commitment to approaching patient safety goals,” said Dr. Glen Davis.
Davis is leading the Seminole County Patient Safety Council, a group of doctors and administrators representing each of Seminole County’s three hospitals: Florida Hospital Altamonte, Orlando Regional South Seminole Hospital and Central Florida Regional Hospital. Members of the Seminole County Medical Society sit on the Council’s board, along with members of the Seminole County Health Department and the Florida Health Care Coalition.
They meet every four months to work toward more unified initiatives in patient safety and to create a more standardized protocol for doctors and nurses to follow in dealing with patient care. “If you believe prior work studies, many people needlessly die or suffer due to medical errors,” said Dr. Sam Omar, a member of the Council. “The cost of such errors in human suffering and economic terms is probably incalculable.”
Doctors are trained in different centers with different studies and different information,” Davis said. “We want to standardize the procedures a little bit.” Becky Cherney, president and chief executive of the Florida Health Care Coalition, agrees. “The current health-care system is not sustainable,” she said. “Bold initiatives, like the Council, are solutions. We can’t just treat symptoms, and going directly to patient safety is treating the disease.”
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The idea for a safety Council was born in April 2006 at a dinner of the Seminole County Medical Society to discuss patient-safety issues. “Some very important issues came out at the dinner,” Davis said. “It was a general consensus that it would be sad if we didn’t do anything else.”
Many doctors agreed. “As a doctor myself, I want the patient to get the best care possible,” said Dr. Steve Margolis, representing South Seminole Hospital. “We know we are good, but we want to get better.”
A think tank was formed to come up with an agenda, and doctors from South Seminole Hospital were given questionnaires to rank what issues of patient safety were most important to them. Nearly a year later, some of the less costly and less time consuming initiatives are finally making their way through the hospital doors.
The first is a campaign to promote more legible handwriting in the hospitals. Poor handwriting has contributed to incorrect patient prescriptions and other problems, officials said. The Council decided that small sticky notes with messages reminding hospital personnel to use clear handwriting would be the best route. Now, all of the hospitals have the pads with messages reading “Legible handwriting improves outcomes,” “Write Right, Legible Handwriting Keeps Patients Safe,” and “Legible Handwriting Improves Patient Safety.”
“Patient safety has always been an important issue in our hospital,” said Craig Bair, marketing director for Central Florida Regional. “And there is nothing more basic than legible handwriting as a means for patient safety.”
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The Council is working on other initiatives, such as addressing he causes of staph infections, improving health literacy by placing posters throughout hospitals, and use of new technology - such as patient wristbands with barcodes that detail medication information and treatment.
It also hopes to improve communication efforts between medical organizations and tapped Eduardo Salas, a professor at the University of Central Florida. Salas specializes in industrial and organizational psychology. “I deal with human-performance issues,” Salas said. “Solutions to patient safety are not in medicine; they are in psychology, the people.
The road to reform is slow. Although all three hospitals have representatives involved in the Council meetings, they must go back and relay information to the top decision makers, creating a process that leaves council efforts at the mercy of a long chain of command. “It is hard and may be a slow process,” Davis said. “Hospitals and their procedures are very complex, so initially we have to do things that can be easily implemented.”
Another factor is money. “Each of the three hospitals has agreed to pay $1,000 each for initial funding, but we are still waiting on that,” Davis said. “We are also looking at different sources of funding.” The Council hopes grants and government funding will help ensure the project continues.
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Andrea Stanley can be reached at astanley@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5411.
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