post-operative infection risk management
DESCRIPTION
AVOIDABLE PATIENT DEATHS Hospital-Acquired Infections BACTERIAL Resistance to Antibiotics SAFETY ENGINEERING RISK MATRIX FOR INFECTION TREATMENT Enhancing Patient Pain Monitoring AMANDA PAIN GRAPH proactive patient pain management Wong-Baker FACES™ Pain Rating Scale PREVENTABLE MEDICAL ADVERSE EVENTS Tracking Pre Intra Post OPERATIVE pain drivers Call to Action: Insist on TRANSPARENCY | MORE Collaboration LESS Litigation| Root Cause Analysis of Significant Adverse Events | Memo to Hospitals: It’s 2013 …PLEASE DON’T LIMIT Adverse Patient Safety and QA investigations to reactive auditing of completed Safe Surgery Checklists | Make case (to insurance providers) that labor for adverse event investigations to identify root causes and decrease risk of recurring adverse events should be 100% REIMBURSABLE (i.e., patient-billable) Google ZERO Preventable Patient Deaths by 2020 and view the impressive Video Presentations by former President Bill Clinton, Dr. Peter Pronovost and Mr. Joe Kiani | Hospitals need more leaders, MDs and support staff who think and act like Dr. Pronovost. Note to publishers: Please contact me if you would be interested in publishing the future case study. Note to attorneys: Please do not contact me regarding medical malpractice. Closing Comment: “5,390,000 Google hits for “hospital acquired infections” on 5 April 2013 … What is the total now? … How many hits represent a preventable patient death?”TRANSCRIPT
DRAFT RECOGNIZING AND MITIGATING THE HARMFUL CONSEQUENCES OF POST-OPERATIVE INFECTIONS
A Graphical Pain Monitoring Case Study for Hospitals, MDs, Nurses, and Surgery Patients
“I have not seen the data presented this way. It is impressive.”
Independent review comments from Dr. Peter Pronovost 17 March 2013 (Link to Bio). Please read disclaimer noted below.
Disclaimer: These data and graphs apply only to Amanda and our personal experience in March, 2013. Post-Operative pain arises from complex cause and effect interactions that are specific to each patient and case. Please ALWAYS consult with a licensed MD to discuss your pain symptoms and concerns. That being said, I challenge MDs to more effectively educate each surgery patient on how to understand and self-monitor pain, including the inherent danger of pain medication to mask abnormal pain. My message to surgery patients is that a visual pain display showing intensifying pain might become the critical “X Factor” to counter MDs who confidently proclaim “pain following surgery, low grade fever, and elevated white counts are normal … and the abscess revealed by CT scan can be treated”. Our real-time graph provided evidence that IV antibiotics were likely not controlling the spread of infection (which turned out to be correct). Regardless, the potential increasing severity consequences with each passing day, with other clinical evidence, did NOT justify a passive monitoring approach. The Patient Risk Matrix, derived from Safety Engineering, shows how each late-stage hour delay for invasive surgical intervention to remove the abscess jeopardized a vital organ, substantially escalated the cost to treat, prolonged hospitalization and lost time (And the Hospital got paid). Note: Dr. Pronovost’s comment should not be viewed as any type of approval or endorsement.
“In the beginning of the malady it is easy to cure but difficult to detect, but in the course of time, not having been either detected or treated in the beginning, it becomes easy to detect but difficult to cure”. Source: Niccolo Machiavelli (Born 3 May 1429) (link) Copyright © Stephen P. Massey