The odds were against Mark Peters’ sitting across the table from me and boasting of the impressive crimson scar under his shirt.

Most who suffer cardiac arrest do not make it to the hospital, let alone reemerge whole. But here he was, spike-haired and 23, enthusing about his good fortune, a rainbow of rubber “cause” bracelets wobbling around his animated wrists.

The one that matters in this story was red, for the Gregory W. Moyer Defibrillator Fund, which aims to put automated external defibrillators where they’re needed most desperately.

Moyer, Peters’ boyhood pal, died at halftime during a high school basketball game in 2000 because no device was on hand to reset the rhythm of his heart - not in the brand-new Monroe County school, not in the first ambulance, which took a half-hour to respond.

Moyer - seemingly invincible at 6-foot-3 and 220 pounds - died at age 15. (more…)

Hospitals in Oregon and Washington are standardizing overhead calls and color codes to reduce the risk of confusion or human error. The move follows a survey that found wide variation in the emergency codes among the region’s hospitals. This matters because many doctors and nurses now work at more than one place. Correspondent Tom Banse reports.

If you’ve spent any time in a hospital, you know that the staff sometimes speak in code.

Overhead page: “Code blue in ER one. Code blue…”

Here at Capital Medical Center in Olympia, “code blue” means a patient’s breathing or heart has stopped. But at a few hospitals, code blue means “get security.” So now imagine a scenario involving a doctor or nurse who’s recently switched hospitals. Her patient goes into sudden cardiac arrest. She instinctively calls for code blue. But instead of the resuscitation team, the security guard comes running. This really happened at an unnamed Washington hospital. It is one reason Capital Medical Center’s chief nursing officer favors standardization.

Lisa Moylen: “When temporary personnel come, within the first hour they’re here they’re oriented to the codes because that’s very important. It would certainly be a lot easier if there were some universal components.”

Lisa Moylen says the use of temp nurses and traveling nurses has gone way up since she started in medicine 40 years ago.

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Starting next month, if you have a seizure requiring emergency treatment, you could be enrolled in a research trial without your permission.

While subjects in most medical studies must sign lengthy forms to participate, unconscious, convulsing patients can’t give consent. So paramedics will enroll seizure victims in the new study automatically, unless they’re wearing a red “opt-out” bracelet.

The unusual approach has been carefully reviewed by medical and ethics experts, and researchers say most people at high-risk for seizures have been supportive.

Stanford and the University of California-San Francisco are two of 17 research centers nationwide that will be studying the best way to give anti-seizure medications. Patients being transported to hospitals in Santa Clara, San Mateo and San Francisco counties will be subject to the new study.

It’s the only way to learn about life-saving treatments in an emergency, said Dr. James Quinn, associate professor of emergency medicine at Stanford and a lead researcher on the Rapid Anticonvulsant Medication Prior to Arrival Trial (RAMPART). (more…)

Precision Dynamics Corporation and Patient Safety & Quality Healthcare Magazine Recognize Hospitals for Innovation and Results in Nation’s First Patient Safety Contest

SAN FERNANDO, CA - Four hospitals have received national recognition for their progress in reducing medical errors and improving patient outcomes in the nation’s first patient safety contest. Patient Safety & Quality Healthcare magazine (PSQH) and Precision Dynamics Corporation (PDC), the leading provider of patient safety identification solutions, launched the contest in March, 2008 as part of an initiative to support hospitals that are taking innovative measures to address the alarming number of patients affected by preventable medical errors.

With as many as 1 in 10 U.S. patients injured and 100,000 dying every year as the result of preventable medical errors, the contest focused on finding and recognizing those hospitals that are achieving measurable results in improving patient safety outcomes. “The contest offered a unique opportunity to see how hospitals are improving patient safety,” said Susan Carr, editor of PSQH. “They are employing a combination of approaches, including advanced technologies, communication techniques, and staff support and training to address this challenging and complex issue.”

An independent judging panel selected the following winning hospital success stories, based on how each facility used innovative products and processes to prevent medical errors and improve patient safety.

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Henry County Health Center is doing as well as or better than its peers in the areas of patient falls, medication error rate and heart attacks, according to director of patient services Ann Corrigan.

Wristbands, stickers and placards are commonly used to identify allergy warnings, fall risks, or do-not-resuscitate (DNR) orders to hospital staff. The problem is, until recently, these colors were not standardized from one hospital to the next in 22 states, including Iowa.

The Iowa Healthcare Collaborative hopes to change that. IHC recently initiated the decision to standardize color-coded alerts among hospitals that already use color-coded wristbands, such as HCHC.

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