Investing in patient safety programs not only helps patients, but also prevents large payouts for hospitals. And we can measure it ..read more

Admitting patients to their own homes for hospital care: many factors are coming together to make the “Home Hospital” a hot topic in health care delivery. A roomful of defense attorneys in Boston recently heard about the risks and benefits from the MGB leader in charge of the largest such program in the country ..read more

Researchers looking for malpractice risks with virtual visits were surprised to learn that teleradiology was leading the way in professional liability claims over the past 12 years. Virtual office visits didn’t show up in the malpractice claims data, but costs and severity associated with teleradiology claims were well above radiology claims with no telehealth component ..read more

COVID-19 has dragged thousands of doctors and nurses into front-line wards across the country to pitch in. What is the impact on these providers now and in the future? And does all of this have implications for patient safety ..read more

Some top-line conclusions are that outpatient harm was relatively common and often serious, with a call to action for intervention in outpatient errors. Drs. David Levine and David Bates of Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School are joined by their co-author and CRICO Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Luke Sato, who leads our discussion ..read more

Several Harvard-affiliated medical institutions are piloting a program to provide personalized feedback to physicians about the effect of their behavior and interactions on others. More than 675 individuals have gone through the Rapid Pulse 360 evaluations as of Spring 2024. Can it have an impact on employment practices claims or provider-to-provider communication factors? And can follow-up one-to-one coaching help ..read more

As artificial intelligence, or AI, takes off in the public sphere, what about medicine? The health care industry has been using some form of AI for decades, yet very recent advancements are upping the ante. This episode of Safety Net presents excerpts from a recent talk to malpractice attorneys by health care AI expert, Dr. Steven Horng, MD, MMSC, of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School ..read more

The Harvard teaching hospitals and their affiliated institutions have banded together to tackle one of the most difficult and deadly challenges that face all health care providers: clinical tests and specialty referrals that are lost to follow-up. Anecdotal evidence already shows patients who were rescued by the Ambulatory Safety Net project. Navigators are convincing patients to follow through, and results are being flagged ..read more

In late 2023, the Academic Medical Center Patient Safety Organization issued an advisory noting a spike in reports of retained surgical items. A retained surgical item is patient safety lingo for when the surgical team leaves something like a sponge or a tool inside the patient after surgery. These events may lead to serious harm, such as sepsis, prolonged hospitalization, the need for subsequent surgery, or death ..read more

The topline data from Candello claims analysis do not show an increase in malpractice corresponding to the increased use of APPs. In fact, the claims rate may be declining, adjusting for practice population increases ..read more