Smart Healthcare Safety from ECRI Institute

Medical emergencies evoke images of the hospital emergency department or emergency medical personnel responding in the community. But medical emergencies can occur anywhere, including in office and clinic settings—and sometimes those emergencies involve medications. In this episode, Dr. Kelley Shultz describes challenges in responding to emergencies in the office setting and steps they can take to prevent emergencies and respond when they do occur.

As the school year is winding down, children across the nation are getting ready to attend summer camps. Many of them will need prescription and over-the-counter medications while they're at camp, away from their parents and primary care providers. If camps aren't ready to manage the responsibilities of storing and managing those meds, their campers could be at risk. In this episode, Randi Trope, D.O., Vice Chair of Pediatric Quality & Safety, Stony Brook Children's Hospital in New York and a member of the advisory board for the Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP), and Jen Young, PharmD, BCPS, CSP, a pharmacist and medication safety specialist at ISMP, describe safety tips for camp operators, pharmacists, and families.To see more camp safety guidance from ISMP, see https://www.consumermedsafety.org; learn more about ISMP's medication safety work at www.ISMP.org.

The idea of the “five rights” for medication safety has been taught in nursing school since at least World War II, used as a memory tool that nurses should rely on to administer medications safely. Even though no one can identify where the five rights came from, the idea is embedded in medication safety programs and appears frequently in error reports submitted to ECRI and the ISMP Patient Safety Organization.As our guest Susan Paparella, Vice President, Services, Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP), points out, the five rights are inadequate as a safety tool. Because they do not address the system-level errors that contribute to medication errors, those errors can occur even when the five rights have been followed. In the latest episode, we discuss more about the shortcomings of the five rights, and better starting points for medication safety programs.Learn more about ISMP and the ECRI-ISMP Medication Safety memberships.

In this episode, Tim Gibson, Senior Manager, Functional Equivalents, and Andy Poole, Associate Director, Strategy and Innovation, ECRI, describe strategies for enhancing the supply management process in non-acute organizations like nursing homes, ambulatory surgery centers, and physician practices. They describe the importance of building a robust data set and dedicating real staff time to this care-critical activity.

In the latest episode of our podcast, we speak to Karen Garvey, Vice President, Safety and Clinical Risk Management, and J.D. Buchert, Workplace Safety Manager, Parkland Health (Dallas, Texas). They describe their data-driven approach to identifying and combatting workplace violence, including the importance of keeping frontline staff involved in and aware of those efforts.

In this episode, we talk with nurse leaders from Allegheny Health Network (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) about their innovative blended staffing model that encourages LPNs to return to acute care, along with other programs to help bolster staffing, like incentivizing nurses who have left the workforce to return to practice.

Providing equitable care for a diverse population requires providers to meet patients where they are—including if they are experiencing homelessness. In this episode, Dr. Jose Ramos, of Pomona Valley Health Centers, describes his team's outreach efforts to homeless individuals, how those efforts were affected by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, and strategies for implementing similar programs elsewhere.

In this episode, our guest, Emily Transue, MD, MHA, FACP, Medical Director for the Washington State Health Care Authority (HCA), discusses how shared decision-making can be more than a tool to engage patients in their care, and can also help in the fight against care inequities and disparities.

In this episode, we talk with our guest, Tom McCormick, Vice President, Patient Accounting, at Penn Medicine, about adjusting staffing patterns in the patient accounting department during the COVID-19 pandemic. He shares his perspective on how staff roles changed, how the shift to remote work had expected and unexpected effects, and how all of it tied back to providing for patient and staff safety.

In this episode, our guests discuss their data-driven approach to identify and combat disparities and realize their vision of creating a Dallas County with equitable, accessible healthcare for all. Our first guest, Brett Moran, MD, is from Parkland Health & Hospital System, one of the country's largest and most progressive safety-net hospitals. Our second guest, Steve Miff, PhD, is from Parkland Center for Clinical Innovation, a leading, non-profit, data science, artificial intelligence and innovation organization affiliated with Parkland Health & Hospital System.

In this episode, we're taking another look at shortages in the nursing workforce. Healthcare has faced workforce shortages in the past, and even before the COVID-19 pandemic made things even worse. The American Nurses Association and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics forecast the retirement of more than half a million registered nurses by the end of 2022. Our guests are from the M. Louise Fitzpatrick College of Nursing at Villanova University, located just outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

In this episode, we're talking about ECRI's number one Top 10 concern for 2022: staffing shortages and the potential dangers to both the patients and the staff. Prior to 2021, there was a growing shortage of both clinical and non-clinical staff, but the problem has grown exponentially. Our guest is Ernest Grant, PhD, RN, FAAN, the 36th President of the American Nurses Association (ANA).

In this episode, we're talking to our guest from Valleywise Health's Refugee Women's Health Clinic, serving more than 9,000 refugees since 2008 from over 60 countries and is located in the greater Phoenix, Arizona area; specifically, Maricopa County. The Refugee Women's Health Clinic has a long-established infrastructure of community partnership, engagement, and shared community leadership that through collaboration facilitate and coordinate culturally competent care, services, and support.

In this episode, we're talking about wound care biologics—products used to treat all sorts of acute and chronic wounds in hospitals and other care settings. ECRI experts will review what wound care biologics are and some of the challenges that providers face in terms of purchasing and inventory management. Our guests will also discuss strategies to ensure that the right products are available to caregivers at the right time, taking into account some of the challenges that those providers will have in knowing which products will work for which patients.

This episode is part of a series regarding the ECRI and the ISMP Patient Safety Organization's (PSO) annual Deep Dive report.The 2021 Deep Dive report focuses on issues of racial and ethnic disparities in healthcare. Research has repeatedly confirmed that members of racial and ethnic minority groups are more likely to experience disparities in care, including having an increased risk of being uninsured or underinsured, lacking access to care, and experiencing worse health outcomes for treatable and preventable conditions.In this episode, we're talking to guests from Thomas Jefferson University Hospital and the Frazier Family Coalition for Stroke Education and Prevention. They'll discuss an initiative, "Advancing Health Equity and Stroke Prevention through Collaboration," that is being conducted by the Philadelphia Collaborative for Health Equity and the Frazier Stroke Coalition in partnership with Thomas Jefferson University Hospital and Temple Hospital. We'll talk about how the collaborative's mission is to leverage health as a catalyst to help Philadelphians reach their full potential by addressing the drivers of health and health outcomes and how these efforts fit into larger programs to fight inequities.

This episode is part of a series regarding the ECRI and the ISMP Patient Safety Organization's (PSO) annual Deep Dive report.The 2021 Deep Dive report focuses on issues of racial and ethnic disparities in healthcare. Research has repeatedly confirmed that members of racial and ethnic minority groups are more likely to experience disparities in care, including having an increased risk of being uninsured or underinsured, lacking access to care, and experiencing worse health outcomes for treatable and preventable conditions.In this episode, we're talking to guests from Camden Coalition of Healthcare Providers, serving Camden, New Jersey, residents to improve the lives of people with complex health and social needs. The Camden Coalition also works to help patients across the country through the Coalition's National Center for Complex Health and Social Needs. We'll talk about how the Coalition's mission is to improve care for people with complex health and social needs by implementing person-centered care programs that address not only illness but strive to overcome social barriers to health and enhance wellbeing.

This episode is part of a series regarding the ECRI and the ISMP Patient Safety Organization's (PSO) annual Deep Dive report.The 2021 Deep Dive report focuses on issues of racial and ethnic disparities in healthcare. Research has repeatedly confirmed that members of racial and ethnic minority groups are more likely to experience disparities in care, including having an increased risk of being uninsured or underinsured, lacking access to care, and experiencing worse health outcomes for treatable and preventable conditions.In this episode, we're talking to guests from Cooper University Health Care, serving southern New Jersey and Delaware. We discuss outreach around access to the COVID-19 vaccine, how they've worked to overcome those barriers, and how these efforts fit into larger programs to fight inequities.To learn more about ECRI and the ISMP PSO, or to request a demo, visit https://www.ecri.org/pso.

Today, more than a year into the COVID pandemic, we're talking about the process of disaster recovery. While much has been written over the past year about the ways in which the national and global healthcare systems prepared (or could have prepared) for the pandemic, and should prepare for the next one, not as much attention has been paid to how individual providers and organizations will recover from the past year's trauma. In this episode, our guest reminds us that challenges like these can also be viewed as opportunities—and we'll discuss how healthcare providers can turn that attitude into action.To learn more about ECRI's response to the pandemic, check out the COVID-19 Resource Center.

With access to COVID-19 vaccines now more widespread throughout the United States, but still only available under emergency use authorization, employers are wrestling with questions about whether to mandate that their staff received the vaccine. Perhaps, no industry has a more fraught decisions than Aging Services. There remains a significant gap between vaccination rates among staff and residents, and older adults remain one of the most vulnerable populations to COVID-19.In today's episode, we'll review the current state of COVID vaccinations in Aging Services, talk about strategies for increasing vaccination rates, and discuss some of the unintended consequences of not vaccinating.To learn more about ECRI's Aging Services Risk Management, or to request a demo, visit https://www.ecri.org/solutions/aging-risk-management/.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services formally designated ECRI as a Patient Safety Organization (PSO) in 2008. Since then, our PSO has studied nearly 4 million adverse events and near misses from over 1,400 healthcare providers nationwide across acute, ambulatory, and aging services. In this episode, we'll explore what it means to be and participate in a PSO and the evidence for how participation can benefit patient safety, and we'll briefly review some of the legal challenges to PSO protections.

Today, we're talking about ECRI's 2021 list of the Top 10 Health Technology Hazards. This report is intended to identify potential sources of danger that we believe warrant the greatest attention for the coming year and offer practical recommendations for reducing the risks. The 2021 list features all new topics. Several focus on hazards that have developed in today’s environment of unprecedented stresses and rapid technological changes.

In this episode around COVID-19 vaccines, we’ll discuss topics like why two shots are needed with the currently authorized vaccines, concerns about allergies and contraindications, new mutations, and more.

Nursing homes have recently been assessed millions of dollars in citations for failing to have effective respiratory protection programs in place to protect staff and residents from COVID-19. Many of these violations are related to the failure to develop a written program, as well as for not providing medical evaluations, training, and fit testing for N95 masks.

This podcast is part of ECRI's ongoing response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In today’s episode, Marcus Schabacker, MD, PhD, President and CEO of ECRI, discusses our position paper on the fast-tracked development of COVID-19 vaccines. During recent FDA public hearings and within the paper, ECRI warns that rushing to deploy vaccines before all the data has been collected and evaluated could lead to increased risk for patients, not to mention harm to public trust in vaccines in general. Interested in learning more? Contact us at (610) 825-6000 or clientservices@ecri.org.

This is a special episode produced in conjunction with our colleagues in ECRI's Partnership for Health IT Patient Safety. The Partnership is working with EHRA to explore how health IT can help integrate behavioral health and primary care. This podcast is the second part of our conversation. During that first discussion, we spoke about how many Americans with behavioral health conditions receive their behavioral care from their primary care providers, but only one-third of patients with behavioral health conditions report receiving the care they need. In this episode, we'll look at what the workgroup learned about how technology can facilitate this integration, how we can use health IT to increase access to care, and whether health IT can help clinicians from various disciplines speak with one another and share information to facilitate safe, effective, quality care. Interested in learning more? Contact us at (610) 825-6000 or clientservices@ecri.org.

In this episode, we're talking about bone graft substitutes—a type of device that can lead to a lot of confusion among purchasers and providers because of all the varieties available. These substances are used as alternatives to autologous bone grafts in orthopedic procedures such as filling of bone voids, arthrodesis (i.e., bone joint fusion), repair of bone fractures, or healing of bone surrounding implanted devices (e.g., knee/hip prostheses, bone screws). Our guests will describe some common misconceptions about bone graft substitutes and steps organizations can take to improve safety and purchasing procedures. Interested in learning more? Contact us at (610) 825-6000 or clientservices@ecri.org.

This is a special episode produced in conjunction with our colleagues in ECRI's Partnership for Health IT Patient Safety. ​The Partnership is convening a workgroup to derive safe practices to reduce CPOE alert fatigue through monitoring, analysis, and optimization. John McGreevy, MD, University of Pennsylvania, and Adam Wright, PhD, Vanderbilt, are the collaborators co-chairing the workgroup. In this episode, we’re talking to the workgroup’s co-chairs about the burden providers face from alerts, the impact on patient safety, and how the workgroup will identify potential solutions that can be implemented in large and small organization alike. Interested in learning more? Contact us at (610) 825-6000 or clientservices@ecri.org.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the need for drastic social distancing measures included banning visitors at most nursing homes throughout the U.S. in an attempt to protect some of the most vulnerable among us. That ban, however, carried with it a real emotional burden for persons served and families unable to visit their loved ones, not to mention facility staff. In this episode, we're talking about the steps involved in reopening nursing homes to visitors. As some parts of the country continue to relax distancing rules while others are forced to reinstate some rules, we talk about the considerations for opening allowing visitors and how to do so safely when the time is right. Learn more about how ECRI can help from our website at www.ecri.org, where you'll find our COVID-19 Resource Center with publicly available resources to help providers across the continuum of care, including ECRI's position paper Aging Services Visitation Guidelines in the COVID-19 Pandemic. Interested in learning more? Contact us at (610) 825-6000 or clientservices@ecri.org.

We all want answers to critical questions such as: How much longer will the SARS-COV-2 pandemic last? Is social distancing working? Are the tests reliable? Do any treatments work? The world is swimming in SARS-COV-2 scientific data rushed to publication even before peer review. In this episode, we're talking about some of the statistical models used to try to understand the future of the pandemic. We’ll discuss key questions both consumers and healthcare provider organizations should ask as they evaluate those models and judge how much—or how little—to rely on them. Learn more about how ECRI can help from our website at www.ecri.org, where you'll find our COVID-19 Resource Center with publicly available resources to help providers across the continuum of care, including ECRI's position paper COVID-19 Models: Why Do Projections Differ. Interested in learning more? Contact us at (610) 825-6000 or clientservices@ecri.org.

Recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows more than 700 women die each year from childbirth-related complications in the United States—and more than half of these deaths are preventable. Another 50,000 women experience serious birth-related complications. The U.S. has the highest maternal death rate among the world's developed nations, and that rate is rising, even as it falls throughout most of the rest of the world. In the second episode of the two-part series, we're talking about strategies for preventing maternal death and injury. In particular, we'll look at ways providers should support mothers after they leave the hospital—a time that hasn't received as much attention as the time in the hospital right after delivery. Maternal health across the continuum of care ranked number 2 on ECRI's 2020 Top 10 Patient Safety Concerns, after missed and delayed diagnoses. Learn more about how ECRI can help from our website at www.ecri.org. Interested in learning more? Contact us at (610) 825-6000 or clientservices@ecri.org.

Recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows more than 700 women die each year from childbirth-related complications in the United States—and more than half of these deaths are preventable. Another 50,000 women experience serious birth-related complications. The U.S. has the highest maternal death rate among the world's developed nations, and that rate is rising, even as it falls throughout most of the rest of the world. In the first episode of the two-part series, we're talking about strategies for preventing maternal death and injury. In particular, we'll look at ways providers should support mothers after they leave the hospital—a time that hasn't received as much attention as the time in the hospital right after delivery. Maternal health across the continuum of care ranked number 2 on ECRI's 2020 Top 10 Patient Safety Concerns, after missed and delayed diagnoses. Learn more about how ECRI can help from our website at www.ecri.org. Interested in learning more? Contact us at (610) 825-6000 or clientservices@ecri.org.

Whether from fear of contracting coronavirus, commitment to social distancing recommendations, hesitation to burden a stressed healthcare system—or all of the above—many people are avoiding needed medical care during the COVID-19 pandemic even in the face of potentially life-threatening emergencies. In this episode, we're talking about the need for patients to still seek and receive routine and emergency care that's not related to the pandemic, and how providers can communicate to patients to encourage that care. We’ll also discuss how to communicate changes to routine practice that patients should expect upon their arrival. Learn more about how ECRI can help from our website at www.ecri.org, where you'll find our COVID-19 Resource Center with publicly available resources to help providers across the continuum of care. ECRI members can also access sample communication scripts for physician practices to encourage patient. Interested in learning more? Contact us at (610) 825-6000 or clientservices@ecri.org.

Alarm safety has been a recognized problem in healthcare for more than a decade. A component of that is alarm fatigue—a situation when a provider, frustrated by nuisance alarms that may not be actionable, eventually starts ignoring alarms that are important and actionable. Alarm fatigue ultimately puts patient safety in jeopardy. In this episode, we'll talk about why this problem has persisted, the intersection of people and technology that can make it worse, and strategies for combatting it. Learn more about how ECRI can help from our website at www.ecri.org. Also, you can download our Top 10 Health Technology Hazards for 2020, which offers a global view of alarm management, focusing on the cognitive load resulting from all of the alarms, alerts, and other notifications that confront clinicians on a daily basis. Interested in learning more? Contact us at (610) 825-6000 or clientservices@ecri.org.

This episode is part of a special series in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.  In this episode, we're talking about some of the first steps healthcare organizations are taking in resuming more normal operations—a necessary process but one that can be fraught with risk for patients and providers alike. We’ll discuss the planning necessary to resume care, as well as one critical step that most re-opening guides and checklists haven't discussed. ECRI offers additional resources in our COVID-19 Resource Center to help providers across the continuum of care. Interested in learning more? Contact us at (610) 825-6000 or clientservices@ecri.org.

This episode is part of a special series in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.  COVID-19 brings an enormous set of challenges to aging care facilities around the country. In this episode, we're talking about the role of transparency and notifications following adverse events in aging services. We’ll discuss why these practices are key in building trust with residents and families, as well as how they reduce the burden on caregivers. ECRI offers additional resources in our COVID-19 Resource Center to help providers across the continuum of care. You'll also find our latest free white paper on incident identification and notifications. Interested in learning more? Contact us at (610) 825-6000 or clientservices@ecri.org.

This is a special episode produced in conjunction with our colleagues in ECRI's Partnership for Health IT Patient Safety. The Partnership is working with EHRA to explore how health IT can help integrate behavioral health and primary care. Many Americans with behavioral health conditions receive their behavioral care from their primary care providers—in fact, we estimate that one in five primary care visits includes behavioral health indications. On top of that, nearly 30% of adults with chronic disease have behavioral health needs as well. And yet, only one-third of patients with behavioral health conditions report receiving the care they need. In this episode, we'll talk about why this integration is so important and what the collaboration hopes to accomplish. Interested in learning more? Contact us at (610) 825-6000 or clientservices@ecri.org.

In this episode, we're talking about measuring safety culture in healthcare, particularly in light of an updated Culture of Safety Survey released by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). The changes affect how organizations will be able to use the results of past surveys to track their own growth and how they'll be able to compare results to AHRQ's national database. We'll talk about why and how safety culture should be assessed, some common pitfalls we've seen in helping organizations do an assessment, and strategies for a successful initiative. ECRI’s Proactive Risk Assessment team works with hospitals, medical offices, ambulatory surgery centers, and nursing homes to develop surveys that not only assess safety culture, but also assess clinical and operational risks. Interested in learning more? Contact us at (610) 825-6000 or clientservices@ecri.org.

In this episode, we're talking about COVID-19, the disease caused by a novel coronavirus that originated in the Chinese city Wuhan. Now designated a public health emergency by the World Health Organization and the U.S. Department for Health and Human Services, as of the time of this recording, the virus has been associated with tens of thousands of cases and more than two thousand deaths. We'll discuss the virus in the context of outbreak preparedness more broadly and what healthcare providers can do next. For healthcare professionals, the thought of being unprepared or under-prepared for coronavirus, or another infectious disease outbreak as the flu, is alarming. To help healthcare organizations protect workers as well as patients, ECRI has developed the COVID-19 (Coronavirus) Outbreak Preparedness Center with links to free resources and guidance from U.S. and international healthcare organizations. You can also find a case study of one hospital's emergency drill, which included more than 50 members of the local community.

In this episode, we’re talking about the new affiliation between ECRI Institute and the Institute for Safe Medication Practices, or ISMP. We first announced this affiliation in November 2019 and made it official in January 2020—and now we're excited to look ahead with the two organizations' leaders at the impact we can have together to improve healthcare quality and safety. ECRI President and CEO, Marcus Schabacker, MD, PhD, and ISMP President, Mike Cohen, RPh, MS, FASHP, discuss the urgent need by the healthcare industry for independent, fact-based, transparent evaluations of new technologies and treatments. As we work on integration planning, we are focused on bringing our Patient Safety Organizations together, expanding our membership offerings, as well as enhancing our educational programs in order to provide resources that make people’s jobs easier and make patients safer. Interested in learning more? Contact us at 610.825.6000 or email clientservices@ecri.org.

A new wave of wearable health technology includes compact, personal-use blood pressure devices, such as wrist-worn activity-tracking devices, or as small handheld devices. These products are available in the consumer market and are typically interfaced with a smartphone application. The app provides a platform to record and store blood pressure measurements and to share the data with a physician. In this episode, we'll talk about ECRI's evaluation of three wearable blood pressure monitor models, our concerns, and what consumers and providers should know. Their compact size and design could make these devices a convenient alternative to using cumbersome conventional cuff-type blood pressure monitors for taking daily measurements—but only if they perform accurately. Interested in learning more? Contact us at 610.825.6000 or email clientservices@ecri.org.

In this episode, we're talking about postincident investigations, which are a crucial part of a risk and safety program in any healthcare setting. The primary purpose of the initial investigation of an incident or near miss is to collect facts, which the organization will later analyze with the ultimate goal of improving care and services. Thus, thorough investigations are the foundation of efforts to learn from incidents and near misses. Even when an investigation is required (e.g., statute, regulation, an accreditor), aging services providers should optimize the opportunity to learn and improve. When done well, internal incident reporting and initial investigations help to enhance quality and prevent incidents and resulting harm. The facts collected facilitate many postincident response practices. Check out our white paper on Incident Investigation in Aging Services. Interested in learning more? Contact us at 610.825.6000 or email clientservices@ecri.org.

Access to accurate, up-to-date drug allergy information is a vital component to effective, safe, and timely patient care. This information comes directly from patients and from information contained in the electronic health record. Recommendations available to improve drug-allergy information to prevent adverse events have not been widely implemented. The safe practice recommendations are available from the Partnership for Health IT Patient Safety; additional information is available from the Institute for Safe Medication Practices. In this special episode produced in conjunction with the Partnership, we look at how technology and clinical decision support could improve how drug and allergy information is handled. Interested in learning more? Contact us at 610.825.6000 or email clientservices@ecri.org.

In the world of risk management, we often talk about what providers should document when they care for patients, like the details of the patient's vital signs, to ensure the patient record is complete and accurate. In this episode of Smart Healthcare Safety from ECRI Institute, we're answering recurring questions we get from members regarding other aspects of medical record maintenance—like what to do when a routine audit identifies hundreds of records that have been left unlocked by providers who no longer work for the organization. We'll discuss issues that arise especially in EHRs and steps providers and the organization need to take to protect the integrity of individual records and EHR systems as a whole. Members of ECRI are able to ask our experts a variety of questions, like the ones we discussed in today's episode or a recent request for advice in developing policy to ensure continuity of care when a provider leaves a practice. Interested in learning more about our individual risk management support? Contact us at 610.825.6000 or email clientservices@ecri.org.

In this special episode produced in conjunction with the Partnership for Health IT Patient Safety, we look at safe practice recommendations for opioid prescribing. The United States is in the midst of a deadly opioid use epidemic, which we see contributing to a decline in U.S. life expectancy. To help reverse this trend, ECRI Institute and the HIMSS Electronic Health Record Association (EHRA) recognized the unique opportunity to collaborate on safety issues by combining EHR developer expertise, information, and perspectives with the Partnership’s evidence, knowledge, data, and data analysis available from ECRI Institute in its role as a Patient Safety Organization. The safe practice recommendations are available from the Partnership; additional safety resources are available from EHRA. Interested in learning more? Contact us at 610.825.6000 or email clientservices@ecri.org.

Surgical staplers are complex medical devices, and ECRI Institute has warned of potential risks for nearly a decade in our Top 10 Health Technology Hazard reports and in more than 40 hazard and alert notifications; our Accident and Forensic Investigation team has reviewed cases of staplers jammed on tissue or otherwise involved in patient injury. Despite these concerns, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has classified them as Class I, or low risk, devices. The issue gained public attention in a Kaiser Health Network report, followed by a May 2019 FDA meeting to consider reclassifying the devices as higher risk. In this episode, we talk to Scott Lucas, Director of ECRI Institute's Accident and Forensic Investigation, who presented at the FDA meeting, and Julie Miller, Senior Project Engineer, who has evaluated surgical staplers for ECRI Institute's Health Devices program.

A hospital room design contest led to so many ideas for reducing infection risk that there was no winner. Instead, competing architecture firms worked together to put patients first and make sure that all the best ideas were put into place. In this episode, ECRI Institute's Mark Macyk, a Risk Management Analyst, shares details about the contest and which steps to take to reduce infection risk in patient rooms without undergoing new construction or significant renovations. Read more about The Contest That No One Won. ECRI Institute PSO members can login to see the video Respiratory Assessment of the Patient Receiving Opioids, part of the 2017 ECRI Institute PSO Deep Dive. Interested in learning more? Contact us at 610.825.6000 or e-mail clientservices@ecri.org.

A March 2019 warning from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration highlights a vulnerability in certain implanted cardiac devices, raising concerns that these lifesaving devices could be susceptible to malfunctions caused by hackers. In this episode, ECRI Institute's Juuso Leinonen, Senior Project Officer, and Chad Waters, Senior Cybersecurity Engineer, discuss the scope of the risk, steps providers should take, and just how worried patients with these implanted devices should be. ECRI’s Top 10 Health Technology Hazards for 2019 identified cybersecurity threats with hackers exploiting remote access vulnerabilities as a top concern. ECRI members can login to read about the FDA alert and about Cybersecurity Essentials. Interested in learning more? Contact us at 610.825.6000 or e-mail clientservices@ecri.org.

  In this episode of Smart Healthcare Safety from ECRI Institute, we're talking with two ECRI Institute experts about endoscope reprocessing. Inadequate reprocessing of flexible endoscopes led to 30,000 patients being called for follow-up testing between 2005 and 2012, according to one estimate. Contaminated endoscopes can spread infections like HIV and hepatitis B and C, and even in the absence of an outbreak, media coverage of a recall can damage the facility's reputation. ECRI Institute's James Davis and Jackie Ferenschak discuss why endoscopes are difficult to reprocess effectively and strategies for helping staff succeed. In ECRI’s Top 10 Health Technology Hazards for 2019, we identified mishandling flexible endoscopes after disinfection on the list as a potential source of danger that we believe warrants attention. Members of the Healthcare Risk Control and PSO Plus programs can login to see our complete guidance on endoscope reprocessing.

In this episode of Smart Healthcare Safety from ECRI Institute, we're talking with two ECRI Institute experts about patient violence in healthcare. Patient violence is a problem that sits at the intersection of worker and patient safety, potentially affecting anyone who works in, is treated in, or visits a healthcare facility. The issue is enough of a concern that it has appeared on ECRI’s Top 10 Patient Safety Concerns list every year from 2014 to 2018.  Today, we'll look at what we know about the prevalence of violent acts committed by patients, some of the organizational and individual risk factors, and what organizations can do to equip their staff to reduce that risk and respond if violent incidents occur. Interested in learning more? Contact us at 610.825.6000, ext. 5891 or e-mail clientservices@ecri.org.