San Mateo Medical Center Implements Measures To Improve Patient Safety
San Mateo Medical Center has implemented several new strategies -- such as creating rapid-response teams and developing programs to prevent post-operation infections -- to improve patient safety and reduce medical errors, the San Francisco Examiner reports.
The effort is part of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement's national 100k Lives Campaign to prevent 100,000 deaths in 18 months by implementing basic safety strategies that have been found to work at other hospitals.
The hospital also has begun to prominently list patient medications on medical charts and work to prevent patients on ventilators from developing pneumonia. Hospital officials already have implemented a new "conflict of opinion" policy to encourage staff to speak up if they believe something is wrong with a particular treatment.
Training for the program is being funded by $100,000 in grants, and the hospital will use its own funds to continue the program when the grant money is spent, according to hospital spokesperson Dave Hook (Carpenter, San Francisco Examiner, 2/6).