Michael Appel MD Named Chief Patient Safety Officer at Northeast Georgia Health System

Northeast Georgia Health System, Inc. has hired Michael Appel, M.D. as Chief Patient Safety Officer. Combining his expertise in the cockpit with more than 20 years experience in healthcare, Dr. Appel brings the right recipe for innovative improvements in patient safety. “You don’t often get the chance to work with a person who has been an Ivy League professor, has flown thousands of hours for Delta Airlines and continues to practice anesthesiology,” says Carol Burrell, President and CEO of NGHS. “We’re excited by the ideas Dr. Appel brings to the table and proud of how he’s already helped make NGMC a safer place for patients.”

Dr. Appel credits his expertise in aviation safety as the foundation for his passion to improve healthcare. “I began reading aircraft accident reports at a young age, and couldn't afford to fly real airplanes" says Dr. Appel. "So I learned about aviation from a safety perspective first...long before I touched the controls of a real airplane. I read every accident report I could get my hands on."

Appel's deep understanding of aviation safety is what set the stage for his huge disappointment with the healthcare system. “It was chaos...what I witnessed when I first stepped foot into a hospital as a medical student. It was at that moment that I realized my mission in life was to make healthcare systems safer for patients."

“Sometimes it’s easy to get numb to terms and tools you use every day, and forget the real meaning behind those terms and the true reason for using those specific tools,” says Sam Johnson, MD, Vice President of Medical Affairs and Chief Medical Officer of NGHS. “Dr. Appel’s experiences help us all look at our jobs from a fresh perspective and ask ourselves what we can do to improve human performance.”

Having considered other offers from around the country, Dr. Appel chose Northeast Georgia Medical Center because "the climate is right at this hospital to be real pioneers in patient safety," says Appel. He credits a team of world-class physicians, a supportive administration, an involved and progressive board of directors, but most importantly the employees of the 5,000 staff referral center who, he says, "create a unique environment, ripe for groundbreaking improvements in patient safety."

Among the many patient safety projects at NGHS, several encompass techniques borrowed directly from aviation. One example uses "root cause analysis" in a way similar to aircraft accident investigations performed by the National Transportation Safety Board. By identifying a patient safety concern and working backward to fix the process itself, Dr. Appel's team makes errors less likely to be repeated.

Another approach inspired by aviation is the use of standard phraseology. Like aviation, healthcare needs a glossary of sacred terms which have specific meaning. "The word 'STAT' has been so abused as to be rendered meaningless", says Appel. In 2012, NGHS will launch a ‘Minutes Count’ campaign to tap into the efficiency that comes from using standard words with specific meanings. "When lives are at stake, communication needs to be crisp and concise," says Appel. "Listen to the exchanges between air traffic control and pilots. They speak a language created with safety at its core."

But Dr. Appel, who is frequently invited to speak nationally on patient safety, will be the first to tell you there are no short cuts. "No lecture is going to do anything for patient safety. The change we're after is one of culture, and that will take decades of hard work."

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Hospital Association of Southern California Launches SCORE Program with Safer Healthcare

The Hospital Association of Southern California has launched a new initiative to help improve healthcare quality  and reduce costs in the operating room. The Surgical Care and Operating Room Excellence (SCORE) Initiative is a nine-month program focused on creating operational efficiencies and enhancing the culture in the perioperative services area.

SCORE is designed to give hospitals the practical tools and skills needed for developing and sustaining effective, high-reliability processes in the OR.  By teaching high-reliability teamwork and communications skills and implementing innovative tracking technology and Lean Six Sigma improvement tools, SCORE will increase patient safety and reliability while reducing operational costs.

"Hospital operating rooms are highly complex and fast-paced by nature, requiring effective people, processes and technology all working together to achieve efficient, affordable and safe surgical care," said HASC VP of Hospital Operations and Performance Excellence Michele Graynor. "SCORE gives hospitals the ability to achieve these goals in a collaborative environment where administrators, staff members and physicians can all participate and leverage their collective wisdom."

SCORE was developed by a team of high-reliability experts and Lean practitioners to deliver quality improvements for hospitals. Developed in association with Safer Healthcare, a Denver, Colo.-based company, SCORE gives participating hospitals the ability to simultaneously improve patient safety, increase levels of quality, and reduce costs.

"We are extremely pleased to launch the SCORE initiative," said Tony Gorski, CEO of Safer Healthcare.  "For the first time, California hospitals will be able to benchmark and share their progress and best practices in the OR when it comes to quality improvement and patient safety."

SCORE will also leverage the innovative technology of TAGNOS, a Southern California-based company, to provide continuous visibility of the hospital's assets and patients using location-tracking and patient-flow software.  This solution will not only give the patient's location at all times, but also determine the patient's progress in the overall treatment process, the length of time needed to complete each step, and the remaining steps.  Any delays are flagged immediately, and the hospital staff is notified. This level of application intelligence allows hospitals to improve patient throughput, asset and staff utilization, and overall patient satisfaction.

"According to the Association of periOperative Nurses, one additional procedure per day can generate $4 million to $7 million of revenue in an average-sized facility in one year," said Neeraj S. Bhavani, CEO of TAGNOS. "Hospitals are faced with a limited number of operating rooms and ever-increasing surgical volume. Expediting patients through the surgical process will maximize allocation of limited resources by reducing scheduling delays and gaps in OR time."

Antelope Valley Hospital Converts to Masimo Patient Monitoring System

Antelope Valley Hospital and Masimo  announced the hospital's conversion to Masimo rainbow® SET Pulse CO-Oximetry™ technology—enabling advanced noninvasive patient monitoring capabilities that offer immediate, pain-free clinical data and physiological information. The hospital-wide conversion equips Antelope Valley's only full-service hospital with the most technologically and clinically-advanced oximetry and noninvasive patient monitoring solutions available—making patient monitoring both pain-less and cost-effective.

"Converting to Masimo rainbow® SET enables Antelope Valley Hospital to provide a higher level of monitoring care that is pain-free and less invasive than traditional capabilities," stated Edward Mirzabegian, CEO of Antelope Valley Hospital. "This new technology allows us to continuously track key blood, fluid, and respiration parameters without using invasive techniques to collect blood. It's like an invisible lifeline that provides our clinicians with immediate, real-time access to advanced clinical intelligence and continuous physiological measurements that were not available 10 years ago. And, because this technology is completely noninvasive, the cost-of-care is reduced to both the hospital and patient—enabling us to deliver an exceptional level of care and patient safety to our patients cost-effectively."

QuadraMed Expands Agreement with HANYS

QuadraMed Corporation, a provider of health care technologies and services that improve the healthcare quality, patient safety, and efficiency of patient care, has signed an expanded agreement with HANYS Solutions, a subsidiary of the Healthcare Association of New York State to include QuadraMed's identity management solutions.

HANYS Solutions, which has marketed QuadraMed's Quantim(R) suite of health information management (HIM) coding, compliance, and record management solutions since 2000, will now also offer QuadraMed's enterprise master patient index (MPI) solutions to New York-based hospitals and health systems. By adding QuadraMed's (#1 in KLAS*) identity management offerings to the products and services it currently resells, both entities will help New York health systems achieve a variety of financial, clinical, and regulatory objectives.

"Through this partnership, New York's hospitals will be able to leverage proven technologies that ensure data integrity and promote interoperability," said Duncan W. James, QuadraMed Chief Executive Officer (CEO). "Beyond playing a critical role in health information exchange and supporting compliance with 'meaningful use' guidelines, a reliable and accurate MPI paves the way for improved patient safety and care within and among health care facilities." 

QuadraMed's suite of identity management solutions, which includes enterprise MPI and clean-up services, work together to ensure one accurate clinical record is retained per patient, regardless of the data source, application, or facility being visited. By detecting and resolving erroneous or duplicate patient records, medical staff can quickly access a complete view of a patient's treatment history, helping to enhance coordination between caregivers within one organization or across multiple facilities, while improving overall patient safety.

Patient Safety Technologies Announces Third Quarter Results

Patient Safety Technologies, Inc.  announced financial results for its third quarter of 2011 ended September 30th, 2011.During the third quarter of 2011, the number of institutions using SurgiCount Safety-Sponge® System surpassed 78. This compares to approximately 57 institutions using the solution at the end of the third quarter of 2010. To date in the fourth quarter, Patient Safety Technologies has implemented 9 additional facilities with 12 additional facilities scheduled during the remainder of the fourth quarter. In total, the number of facilities currently using the Safety-Sponge® System and those with signed agreements and scheduled implementations is over 230.


For more information on retained surgical instruments and Patient Safety please visit our website at www.psqh.com

St Joseph Mercy Hospital Emergency Department Wins 2011 MITSS HOPE Award

The winner of the 2011 MITSS HOPE Award is the NEXT STEP Program at St. Joseph Mercy Hospital Emergency Department in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The HOPE Award Honors Outstanding People Everywhere who have furthered the MITSS mission of Supporting Healing and Restoring Hope to patients, and families, and clinicians who have been impacted by adverse medical events. RL Solutions’ President and CEO, Sanjay Malaviya, presented the award at the MITSS 10th Annual Dinner and Fundraiser held at the Westin Copley Place, Boston.

To read the full article please visit Patient Safety & Quality Healthcare

Nancy Kielhofner New Executive Director at Minnesota Alliance for Patient Safety

Minnesota Alliance for Patient Safety Hires First Executive Director.
With the addition of Nancy Kielhofner, the Minnesota Alliance for Patient Safety  is also undergoing a restructure of its governance model by incorporating to become its own independent organization.Founded by the Minnesota Hospital Association , the Minnesota Department of Health and the Minnesota Medical Association, the partnership works to promote patient safety through supportive efforts among all participants of the health-care system.

Kielhofner brings a wealth of experience and knowledge to an organization that is stepping up its efforts to meet new challenges, said MHA President and Chief Executive Officer Lawrence Massa."Nancy's extensive work advancing patient safety at hospitals in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Illinois will be invaluable as she leads MAPS to the next level," he said. "Her track record in implementing quality improvement strategies and processes, coupled with her absolute passion for patient safety, will serve Minnesota patients well."