5 Facets of Patient Safety

by Erica Mitchell | March 17 2023

Patient safety is a topic we often cover in this blog; it is a central concern of anyone involved in the healthcare industry. However, we may not stop and consider the many facets of safety. "Safety" immediately brings to mind protection from physical harm, but to a patient and a community, safety can mean so much more. In today's post, we'll look at five facets of patient safety, and how together, they create an environment where patients and their communities can heal.

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Patient Safety Awareness Week

by Erica Mitchell | March 15 2023

Today we pulled together a few of our previous posts about patient safety in honor of Patient Safety Awareness Week. We believe that all our posts focus on patient safety, but these are the ones that provide actionable items for you or a loved one.

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Special Populations Series: Cancer

by Erica Mitchell | February 1 2023

With World Cancer Day this Saturday, we dedicate this post to those patients facing a cancer diagnosis. As with any serious disease, the many types of cancer put a great deal of stress on the body and can make a person more susceptible to infection. Unique to cancer, however, are the infection risks due to the disease's treatment. Today we will explore how cancer and infection intersect in this special population.

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Social Determinants of Health and Infection Control

by Erica Mitchell | January 9 2023

Medical researchers have recently placed more emphasis on the non-medical conditions that impact patient health and outcomes. Collectively known as social determinants of health (SDOH), these are the conditions surrounding birth, growth, living, working, and aging. The distribution of money, power, and resources play heavily into the formula: Those lacking stable access to any (or all) of these factors see impacts on health, including exposure to and infection by disease-causing pathogens. In today's post, we'll explore the intersection of SDOH and infection control and prevention, and describe some of the ways today's health system is trying to address this issue.

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Outpatient Services and Infection Control: Moving Forward [Part 5]

by Erica Mitchell | September 21 2022

This series on outpatient services and infection control can seem rather dismal. Thankfully, most outpatient facilities are safe and only a small percentage of patients experience an HAI. Nonetheless, the breaches in infection control mean that given the right circumstances, severe outbreaks can (and do) take place. The reality can make us feel powerless and confused. Fortunately, there are things that we can do to help.

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Outpatient Services and Infection Prevention: Tracking Infections [Part 4]

by Erica Mitchell | September 14 2022

So far in our series on infection control in ambulatory care settings, we covered the types of facilities and how they are regulated. One huge topic to cover is the impact of the outpatient setting on the ability to track infections. Today’s post will begin to explore this topic, and our final post will present what we can do, both individually and collectively, to begin to improve infection prevention in these facilities.

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Length of Stay and Infection: How To Get Patients Out of the Danger Zone

by Erica Mitchell | September 12 2022

No one wants to stay in a hospital any longer than they have to. We all have an innate desire to get back to the comfort of our homes and begin the process of returning to normal activities. Some of us may not realize that there is also a very real, scientific reason for leaving the hospital as soon as possible: The longer a patient is in the hospital, the greater their chances of getting a hospital-associated infection (HAI), and once a patient has an HAI, they tend to stay longer in the hospital. It seems like a lose-lose scenario for everyone involved. It's just in everybody's best interest to reduce HAIs to not increase LOS, and shorten LOS to reduce HAIs. In today's post, we'll see how healthcare facilities are working to accomplish this dual goal.

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Outpatient Services and Infection Prevention: What We Don't Know is Hurting Us [Part 3]

by Erica Mitchell | September 7 2022

We don’t know enough about infection in ambulatory care centers. 

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Outpatient Services and Infection Prevention: What is Ambulatory Care? [Part 2]

by Erica Mitchell | August 31 2022

Any kind of medical treatment received outside of a hospital admission is considered ambulatory care, or outpatient care. This category of healthcare is growing very quickly; in fact, it is the fastest growing health care market in the US! Outpatient services are growing in popularity for two main reasons. First, they are less expensive than hospitals, which have much higher overhead costs. The second reason is that medical improvements have made outpatient services far more practical. The quality of home health care through technology and nursing services allow patients who would have had to be in a hospital receive the necessary care at home.

Up to 75% of surgical procedures in the US take place in the more than 5,000 outpatient surgical centers. (There was a 300% increase between 1996 and 2006, the last time a survey was made. More on that in our next post.) Add to this the number of scans, tests, dialysis sessions, chemotherapy treatments, and other procedures and you begin to see the vast numbers of individuals receiving medical care at ambulatory care facilities. As more and more of us choose these outpatient services for increasingly complex procedures, it is all the more important to learn about this critical area of health care.

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Outpatient Services and Infection Prevention: An Introduction [Part 1]

by Erica Mitchell | August 24 2022

In late January of 2016, the CDC issued a health advisory “urging dialysis providers and facilities to assess and improve infection control practices to stop Hepatitis C virus transmission in patients undergoing hemodialysis.” This advisory was released after an increase in Hepatitis C infections, and the preliminary evidence that transmission from patient to patient had taken place in at least 9 clinics. This advisory brought to mind the issue of infection in other outpatient settings and inspired the topic of this series, “Outpatient Services and Infection Prevention.”

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© EOS Surfaces and EOScu Blog, 2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to EOS Surfaces and EOScu Blog with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.