Health News
- Infections, Other Safety Issues Plague Hospitals, Maybe More So When Nursing Is Cut; Here's A Good Series On It
The Centers for Disease Control has reported that nearly 1 million patient-safety incidents, including infections that patients acquired in hospitals, occurred among Medicare patients over the years 2006, 2007, 2008. In all, the incidents -- which represented...
- More Hospital-acquired Infections Are Reported In Patients Cared For Nurses Who Are Overworked, Study Finds
Getty Images stock photo.Overworked nurses dealing with heavy patient loads are associated with increases in hospital-acquired infections, say researchers with the Center for Health Outcomes and Policy Research at the University of Pennsylvania School...
- Hospitals Are Not Reporting Cases Of Harm To Patients; Electronic Health Records May Be Key To Solving The Problem
By Tara Kaprowy Kentucky Health News Hospitals aren't reporting cases in which medical care harmed a patient, making it difficult for providers to identify problems and fix them, according to a report to be released by the U.S. Department of...
- Kentucky Is One Of 11 States With Federal Incentives For Using Electronic Records In Medicaid
Medicare is now offering incentives to hospitals and eligible health-care professionals for the use of electronic health records, but Medicaid is doing so in only 11 states. Kentucky is one of them. Dr. Donald Berwick, administrator of the Centers for...
- Sinai Hospital Earns Coveted Nursing Excellence Award
Sinai Hospital of Baltimore received the American Nurses Credentialing Center?s highest honor for nursing excellence, making it the first and only community/teaching hospital in Maryland to carry the elite "Magnet" designation. After an intense application...
Health News
Electronic health records are helping nurses provide better care, big study finds
Electronic health records are helping nurses get better health outcomes and are improving nursing care, the first big study on the subject has found.
The study conducted by the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing involved 16,000 nurses at 316 hospitals in California, Florida, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. It found that "implementation of an EHR may result in improved and more efficient nursing care, better care coordination, and patient safety," wrote lead author Ann Kutney-Lee, a health-outcomes researcher at Penn Nursing.
The study, which was published in the Journal of Nursing Administration, also found, "having a basic EHR was associated with better outcomes independently of nurse staffing, indicating that they both play an important role in quality of care."
Nurses in hospitals that had comprehensive EHR systems were "significantly less likely to report unfavorable patient safety issues, frequent medication errors, and low quality of care," research-reporting service Newswise reports.
The most current estimates show just 12 percent of U.S. hospitals have an EHR system in place, but that will change with the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act. Starting in 2011, hospitals and physicians received incentive payments from Medicare and Medicaid to switch over to EHRs. The study did not measure outcomes in rural vs. urban settings "although we do know from other studies that hospitals that used electronic health records during this time period were less likely to be in rural areas," Kutney-Lee said. (Read more)
- Infections, Other Safety Issues Plague Hospitals, Maybe More So When Nursing Is Cut; Here's A Good Series On It
The Centers for Disease Control has reported that nearly 1 million patient-safety incidents, including infections that patients acquired in hospitals, occurred among Medicare patients over the years 2006, 2007, 2008. In all, the incidents -- which represented...
- More Hospital-acquired Infections Are Reported In Patients Cared For Nurses Who Are Overworked, Study Finds
Getty Images stock photo.Overworked nurses dealing with heavy patient loads are associated with increases in hospital-acquired infections, say researchers with the Center for Health Outcomes and Policy Research at the University of Pennsylvania School...
- Hospitals Are Not Reporting Cases Of Harm To Patients; Electronic Health Records May Be Key To Solving The Problem
By Tara Kaprowy Kentucky Health News Hospitals aren't reporting cases in which medical care harmed a patient, making it difficult for providers to identify problems and fix them, according to a report to be released by the U.S. Department of...
- Kentucky Is One Of 11 States With Federal Incentives For Using Electronic Records In Medicaid
Medicare is now offering incentives to hospitals and eligible health-care professionals for the use of electronic health records, but Medicaid is doing so in only 11 states. Kentucky is one of them. Dr. Donald Berwick, administrator of the Centers for...
- Sinai Hospital Earns Coveted Nursing Excellence Award
Sinai Hospital of Baltimore received the American Nurses Credentialing Center?s highest honor for nursing excellence, making it the first and only community/teaching hospital in Maryland to carry the elite "Magnet" designation. After an intense application...