Posted by Sten Westgard, MS
Fresh on the heels of a study about error rates in a Romanian hospital, now we've got a new study about pre-analytical error rates at a Chinese hospital:
Corrected reports in laboratory medicine in a Chinese University hospital for 3 years, Liu X, Jiang Y, Zeng R, Zaho H, Clin Chem Lab Med 2014;52(4):e57-e59
Want to guess how many errors this lab experienced out of 1.1 million test reports in 2012?
-----
Posted by Sten Westgard, MS
Posted by Sten Westgard, MS
We've all heard the infamous quote now over a decade and a half old: that US hospitals kill between roughly 40,000 and 90,000 patients each year. This was an estimate courtesy of the Institute of Medicine report "To Err Is Human" which made the dire performance of hospitals knowledge that even the general public could understand.
But more recently, studies have been tracking the adverse event rates much more closely. A recent NEJM paper followed four conditions from 2005 to 2011.
Of these four conditions, which do you think has the best Sigma performance when it comes to the occurrence of adverse events?
A. Acute Myocardial Infarction (AMI)
B. Congestive Heart Failure
C. Pneumonia
D. (other) Conditions Requiring Surgery
The answer, after the jump...
-----
Posted by Sten Westgard, MS
In a recent issue of CCLM, an interesting opinion paper reported on a pilot study of the quality of UK laboratories.
Given 5,812 QC data points on 5 different platforms in 9 different laboratories measured over 6 months, and a quality goal of 7.0% how many of those laboratories do you think achieved 5-Sigma quality?
- 100%
- 75%
- 50%
- 25%
- less than 25%
The answer, after the jump...
-----
Posted by Sten Westgard, MS
Posted by Sten Westgard, MS
Posted by Sten Westgard, MS
It's almost mandatory that any presentation or report discussing patient safety references the landmark IOM report of 2000: To Err is Human - Building a Safer Health System. The takeaway quote from this report is that US hospitals were causing 44,000 to 98,000 deaths that were otherwise preventable. That is, hospitals were causing tens of thousands of avoidable deaths.
A recent paper has attempted to revise that estimate, focusing on Preventable Adverse Events (PAEs) that contributed to the death of patients. Can you guess how lethal US hospitals are now?
- 4,000 to 10,000 PAEs per year
- 44,000 to 98,0000 PAEs per year
- 100,000 to 200,000 PAEs per year
- 210,000 to 440,000 PAEs per year
The answer, after the jump...
-----
Posted by Sten Westgard, MS
A lot of interesting studies coming out this month, unfortunately none of them with encouraging news about the US healthcare system.
The latest, from Sunil Eappen, MD, Atul Gawande, MD et al, Relationship Between Occurence of Surgical Complications and Hospital Finances, JAMA, April 17, 2013, Vol. 309, No. 15 1599-1606
Take a guess: do US hospitals make more money when things go wrong, or less?
-----
Posted by Sten Westgard, MS
Posted by Sten Westgard, MS
While we recently got a study that estimated the (frightenly high) number of Adverse Events caused by US hospitals, it looks like other countries are not content to let us stand alone. Now Sweden is doing us one better. Guess what the Adverse Event rate is in one hospital in Sweden?
- 28.2%
- 20.5%
- 6.3%
- 3.32%
Which number would you choose?
-----
Posted by Sten Westgard, MS
Posted by Sten Westgard, MS
Posted by Sten Westgard, MS
Now that the age of the IQCP is here, laboratories are grappling with the time and effort it takes to build their Individualized Quality Control Plans. How long should it take to build an appropriate IQCP?
- 40+ hours
- 21-40 hours
- 11-20 hours
- 5-10 hours
- Less than 5 hours?
How much time has it taken for you? How much time do you think it should take?
-----
Posted by Sten Westgard, MS
Posted by Sten Westgard, MS
An important new study was published in the International Journal of Laboratory Hematology, on the QC practices of coagulation laboratories.
But here's a question for you: of all these activities, how many of them occur greater than 90% of the time - and which one doesn't?
- Repeat the QC, and if it passes, report results
- Open [and run] new QC
- Look for trending
- Discontinue testing until controls are within limits
- Repeat all patient samples from the last acceptable QC
To find out which one of the activities occurs at a frequency not like the others, follow the jump...
-----
Posted by Sten Westgard, MS
Posted by Sten Westgard, MS
Posted by Sten Westgard, MS
An interesting abstract was published at the Paris IFCC meeting. It detailed the EQA performance of a set of 12 public laboratories in Catalonia. Can you guess what the failure rate for these labs for biochemistry EQA?
- 14.5%
- 14%
- 3%
- none of the above
The answer, after the jump...
-----
Posted by Sten Westgard, MS
Posted by Sten Westgard, MS
Last month, Advance for the Laboratory published a three part series on Six Sigma in the Clinical Laboratory, written by David Plaut, Nathalie Lepage, and Kim Przekop:
While it's great that Advance has invested in in-depth coverage of the Six Sigma topic, unfortunately one of their examples in part 2 demonstrates a misunderstanding of the application.
See the mistake, after the jump...
-----