... as outlined on the root cause analysis matrix for the specific type of event. An area on the matrix that may not have an identified process breakdown should still be summarized to determine that the component was evaluated. Brief description of event Briefly summarize the circumstances surrounding the occurrence including the patient outcome (e.g., death, loss of function). A 3-‐year-‐old female pediatric patient who was under went her pre-‐operative assessment as an outpatient at her Ear, Nose and Throat (ENT) surgeon’s office. On the day of surgery, the patient and her custodial parent, the mother, presented to the ambulatory surgery center...
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...of several health professionals to maximize the efficiency of both the clinicians and the health care system” (Slippery Rock University, 2007). In other words, it is the intermingling of multiple healthcare disciplines in order to provide the best patient care. An example of this could be the work on a surgical floor where nurses, physicians, surgeons, physical therapy, respiratory therapy, social work, and home health all work together to ensure that each aspect of the recovery is managed well. The clinical case to be discussed is a two month old male who arrived in the pediatric emergency room after a referral from the pediatrician’s office. The child presented to the pediatrician with a two day history of coughing, runny nose, decreased intake and a fever. The child had very few wet diapers in the past 12 hours. The child showed signs of dehydration and was sent by helicopter with the pediatric transport team to the regional children’s hospital. Upon arrival to the emergency room the child had increased work of breathing and was intubated due to impending respiratory failure. The child was fluid resuscitated and lab and chest films were obtained. Once stabilized, the patient was transferred to the pediatric intensive care unit. Once the parents arrived, social...
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...Business Communication Trends Paper Axia College of University of Phoenix Instructor: Pediatrics Associates is a doctor’s offices that treats children from the ages of newborn to 17 years of age. We have to have communication skills that are effective to compete with other offices in their area and to keep the doctor’s office profitable. Our day-to-day activities require communication and effective forms of communication for example: scheduling appointments, our phone staff must be able to have good listening skills, good spelling, and be able to determine what the parent is calling for and know medical terminology. In addition, somewhat be able to asset what could be wrong with patient and in some case determine whether the parent should bring the child into the office or go straight to the emergency room. Our phone staff also has to use those same communication skills to cancel appointments and the communication between parent and Medical Assistant (MA) is vital to be able to relay a problem list of what is wrong with the patient and what their visit is for to the doctor. Whatever information is gathered by the MA has to be accurate, because the information that is given to the doctor helps in the diagnosis of the patient. The doctor then must then tell the MA what form of treatment to perform on the patient. The technologies we use in our office on day-to-day basis to make the day flow proficiently are as follows: a paging system that anyone can hear from anywhere...
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...Sentinel Event: Sentinel events are a subset of medical adverse events. Events that require immediate attention are called Sentinel Events. Joint Commission defines a sentinel event as an unexpected occurrence involving death or serious physical or psychological injury, or the risk thereof. Serious injury specifically includes loss of limb or function. The phrase “or the risk thereof” includes any process variation for which a recurrence would carry a significant chance of a serious adverse outcome. Sentinel Event identified by Joint Commission also include infant abduction or discharge to the wrong family. Summary of the Sentinel event in the Case Study: Sentinel event presented in the case study involves discharge of a minor to the wrong family. Joint Commission requires immediate attention to such matters so that it may be avoided in the future. The summary of the event is that a 13 year old teenager, Tina, was admitted for day surgery. Tina was accompanied by her mother. After dropping Tina for the surgery at the hospital, her mother left to run some errands. Before leaving, she left her contact phone number with the pre-op nurse. After the surgery, Tina was inappropriately released to her father when her mother was delayed in returning to pick-up the daughter from the hospital. The hospital staff had no awareness of the family situation. Upon arrival at the hospital after the errands, mother was informed that Tina’s father had picked up Tina from the hospital because...
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... 1982 – 1985 Diploma in Nursing Bryn Mawr School of Nursing 130 S. Bryn Mawr Avenue Bryn Mawr, PA 19010 1980 – 1982 Associates Degree – Nursing Lebanon Valley College 101 N. College Avenue Annville, PA 17003-1400 Licenses DE Registered Professional Nurse (multi-state) L1 – 0036388 PA Registered Professional Nurse RN – 276374L Certifications 2011 – Present Certified Pediatric Emergency Cert # CP0060799 Nurse 2008 – Present Certified Pediatric Nurse...
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...Sentinel Event This sentinel event involves child abduction from the surgical unit of Nightingale Community Hospital on Thursday, September 14, 2014 at approximately 1230hrs. The patient, a three-year old female, arrived accompanied by her mother, for an outpatient surgical procedure at 0800hrs and proceeded to registration where all currently required documentation was completed and signed by the mother; this included the authorization forms for the surgery. After registration, the patient and her mother were taken to the pre-op area for the preparation for the surgery. After completion of pre-op screening but prior to the patient entering the operating area, the mother stated that she was leaving campus to address a personal matter involving her other child while the patient was in surgery. Contact information was obtained from the mother prior to her leaving the hospital grounds. After this discussion, the patient proceeded to the operating room. After a successful and uneventful surgery, the patient was taken to the Post Anesthesia Care Unit (PACU) for recovery. At this time, the mother was paged overhead to the PACU, but was found to have not yet returned to the hospital. The recovery process was completed and the patient was transferred to the post-op discharge unit pending pickup. The patient was at this time exhibiting anxiety and was distraught from not having a parent present. Another attempt was made to contact the mother by paging her overhead to the discharge unit...
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...Nursing Success Seminar Pediatric Nurse Pediatric nurses must be thoroughly qualified to work with their precious patients. Whether it’s a routine task like ordering medicine, or an interactive one like educating parents and children on the best care for a broken arm, or as complex as providing therapy, the pediatric nurse must be knowledgeable, professional, and competent. One of the qualities of a good nurse that you require in abundance is patience as at times you will have uncooperative patients on your hand who resist treatment. Handling emotionally charged and sometimes scared family members will also require patience on part of the nurse. Nurses are also required to have good communication...
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...Jordain Carlson MAC105 LRC Medical Assistants in Pediatrics A person wanting to work with kids in pediatrics needs to consider the career information to make sure that it’s the job for them. Medical assistants should possess different important qualities if they are thinking about working in pediatrics. It is important that you can perform the duties of a medical assistant. First, take into consideration the career information and outlook. The medical field is always expanding and needing new positions filled. In 2015 there was approximately 601,240 medical assisting jobs available, this included pediatrics as well. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts a 23% increase in jobs available from 2014 to 2024. Working in the medical assisting field a medical assistant makes on average $30,590 a year. Medical assistants that are performing at the top 10% make an average of $43,880 annually. Yes, the outlook for the career is important but so is the education and skills that you may need to possess....
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...Reducing Risks of Child Abductions at Nightingale Community Hospital A sentinel event in the hospital is an unexpected occurrence that involves or poses a high risk for death, serious physical injury or severe psychological damage (Joint Commission, 2013). Incidences that lead to adverse outcomes necessitate immediate attention and plans of actions to prevent recurrences. The Joint Commission, a non-profit certifying body for healthcare organizations, sets safety and quality standards for hospitals. It requires hospitals to conduct root cause analyses (RCA), implement processes to reduce risks of recurrence and evaluate the effectiveness of those processes for sentinel events (Joint Commission, 2013). Nightingale Community Hospital (NCH) had a child abduction sentinel event. The legal guardianship of a child who had surgery was not communicated to various departments of the hospital. The parents of the child were divorced and the mother had legal custody. The child was discharged home with her father. Fortunately, law enforcement located the child at her father’s home and no charges were filed. National statistics show that 9% of missing children are abducted by family members and 3% are kidnapped by non-family members (Polly Klass Foundation, n.d.). Less than 1% of abducted children are victims of homicide, physical abuse and/or sexual assault (Polly Klass Foundation, n.d.). Although these percentages are very low, the impact is great! This means a child who is abducted...
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...child abduction at Nightingale Community Hospital. A 3 year old patient was having surgery at Nightingale Community Hospital on Thursday, September 14. The patient’s mother accompanied the patient before surgery and completed all consent form. An estimated time of 1 hour 45 minutes was given as the time to complete surgery and recovery. The mother informed the pre-op nurse that she would be off campus during the surgery and would return to pick up the patient in the time frame given. She also provided a phone number to contact her if the procedure was finished earlier than planned. Upon completion of surgery and recovery, the patient’s mother was paged from the waiting area by the recovery nurse. The mother was had not returned to the hospital at this time. The patient care was then transferred to the discharge nurse while waiting for the mother to return. During this time the patient was very upset and crying for her mother. The discharge nurse was notified that the father was in the waiting area and approved for the father to see the patient. The father was with the patient for about 30 minutes and the mother had still not arrived. At that time, with no specific information about the patient’s custody arrangement, the discharge nurse provided the father with discharge instructions and allowed him to leave with the patient. When the mother arrived to pick up the patient, she was very upset that the patient was released with the father who does not have custody over the...
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...Collaborative Communication: Integrating SBAR to Improve Quality/Patient Safety Outcomes Cynthia D. Beckett, Gayle Kipnis Purpose/Evidence-Based Practice Question Collaborative communication and teamwork are essential elements for quality care and patient safety. Adverse patient occurrences are an extremely common outcome of communication failures (Leonard, Graham, & Bonacum, 2004). In 2004, the Joint Commission (formerly the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations) analyzed 2,455 sentinel events from hospitals across the United States and reported through root cause analysis over 70% of the events were due to communication failures, and approximately 75% of the patients involved died (Leonard et al., 2004). Although improving communication has been included as a Joint Commission’s National Patient Safety Goal for hospitals since 2003, in 2006, handoff communications were included as a specific communication subset. NPSG 02.05.01 states ‘‘The organization implements a standardized approach to handoff communications, including an opportunity to ask and respond to questions’’ (Joint Commission, 2006). Michael Leonard, MD, from Kaiser Permanente- Denver introduced a collaborative communication tool to support patient safety and outcomes. The structured communication tool is Situation, Background, Assessment, and Recommendation (SBAR) (Haig, Sutton, & Whittington, 2006). The SBAR tool provides a framework for organizing information...
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...errors are a major problem in the healthcare community, and especially in pediatrics. “Up to 27% of all pediatric medication orders result in a medication error.” Keiffer, Marcum, Harrison, Teske, and Simsic (2014). There is far less room for error with drug administration when working with pediatrics. It should be a primary goal to significantly reduce the cases of medication error in ever facility. I will discuss the importance of reducing medical errors relating to a Pediatric Cardiothoracic Intensive Care Unit. The article titled Reduction of Medication Errors in a Pediatric Cardiothoracic Intensive Care Unit discusses the rate of medication errors in their unit, and the steps that were taken to try to eliminate or reduce the number of medication errors. “A medication error is defined as an error that occurs with the prescribing, dispensing, administering, adherence, or monitoring of a drug regardless of whether it results in patient harm or has the potential to result in patient harm.” Keiffer et al. (2014). The authors note that medication errors occur more often with administration issues as opposed to prescribing, ordering dispensing, or monitoring. The article discusses the health care professionals’ courses of action taken to reduce medication errors for their patients. The medical team implemented interventions and methods including: a double check system, hands free communication, a safety systems checklist, a distraction-free zone, information huddles...
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...ALARA Concept for Performing Pediatric Head Computed Tomography With the advancement in Computed Tomography (CT) imaging technology and image acquisition is the importance of patient safety, particularly in pediatric imaging. CT has become one of the most popular diagnostic tools used in the clinical environment. In some facilities, CT scans constitute as much as 67% of the patient's annual exposures to ionizing radiation (Furlow, 2012). Physicians and technologists alike must be knowledgeable on how to perform the ALARA principle on their patients in order to deliver the least amount of radiation dose possible while achieving diagnostic quality images. Image Gently Campaign Image Gently and the Alliance for Radiation Safety in Pediatric Imaging has launched a campaign to increase the awareness of the importance of applying the ALARA principles when imaging pediatric patients with Computed Tomography. The Image Gently web site is a source of valuable information for parents of pediatric patients, physicians, technologists, and radiologists. The web site offers pediatric protocols as well as tracking mechanisms for parents of pediatric patients to keep track of their child's dose from clinical CT examinations. The web site offers educational resources for technologists through on-line presentations for continuing education in pediatric CT scanning describing techniques that technologists can employ to reduce dose to their pediatric patients. An example of one of the...
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...The nurse practitioner (NP) encounters the pediatric patient on many occasions throughout their early childhood which gives them the advantage to recognize developmental delays. Developmental delay is described as the patient is not developing at the expected rate which is important for their physical, educational, and social needs in their young lives. Pediatric patients develop their social, speech and motor skills at a wide variety of time frames. If the child is in the last two percent within their age group to successfully develop a milestone, this could be a symptom of a developmental delay. If the patient is delayed in all develop mental milestones for their age group, this is described as a global developmental delay. Having any...
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...is that these nurses on these two units will not be thrilled with this change, especially the pediatric unit. The pediatric nurses may feel overwhelmed knowing that their normal routine and area is going to be disrupted which can cause them to become stressed or annoyed. However, some might feel happy or content with the change. The obstetric nurses should feel excited. If it was not for this change, these nurses could have potentially lost their jobs. The combination of these units will make a more powerful unit and provide job safety for these nurses. Because of this, these nurses should be happy with the change since it will be benefiting them and the hospital...
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