Tag: Risk assessment

A New Tool to Predict Respiratory Failure: An Interview with Hiroshi Morimatsu, MD, Ph.D

By Michael Wong, JD (Executive Director, Physician-Patient Alliance for Health & Safety)

Being able to easily assess a patient’s condition via a single, multi-parameter indicator would help clinicians determine whether changes in treatment are needed. The desire for such an indicator was confirmed in two surveys conducted by the Physician-Patient Alliance for Health & Safety (PPAHS) conducted in 2013 and again in 2015.

In PPAHS 2013 First National Survey of Patient-Controlled Analgesia Practices, 7 out of 10 hospitals indicated they would like “a single indicator that accurately incorporates key vital signs, such as pulse rate, SpO2, respiratory rate, and etCO2.” Respondents to this survey consisted of a mix of clinicians—18% physicians, 35% non-physicians (such as RTs and RNs), and 47% pharmacists.

A similar desire for a multi-parameter indicator was also found in a 2015 survey of nurses from the American Hospital Association. In this nursing survey, it was found that 67% of respondents said that they would like a single monitor multi-parameter device that measures all current physiological monitoring parameters. Continue reading “A New Tool to Predict Respiratory Failure: An Interview with Hiroshi Morimatsu, MD, Ph.D” →

Patients Need to Be Better Assessed for Respiratory Compromise

Editor’s Note: What might better assessment for respiratory compromise mean to a patient’s outcome? We ask this question in light of yesterday’s post on an assessment tool and the death of 17-year old Logan.

Yesterday, we posted on research by Hiroshi Morimatsu, M.D.,Ph.D (Okayama University Hospital, Okayama, Japan) and his colleagues on whether a patient pulmonary index could be a predictor of respiratory adverse events.

On July 23, 2007, 17-year old Logan died after successfully undergoing routine surgery to correct his sleep apnea. Continue reading “Patients Need to Be Better Assessed for Respiratory Compromise” →

Weekly Must Reads in Patient Safety and Health Care (September 25, 2015) – Risk Assessment Tools & Medical Errors

The two themes for this week’s must reads are risk assessment tools and medical errors.

Risk Assessment Tools

Nicole Humbert, PharmD, Trinity Hospital (Livonia, Michigan) and her colleagues analyzed 13,838 patients who received an opioid within 24 hours of surgery. Through their research, they have developed a risk assessment tool to identify those patients most at risk of opioid-induced respiratory depression: Continue reading “Weekly Must Reads in Patient Safety and Health Care (September 25, 2015) – Risk Assessment Tools & Medical Errors” →