Contaminated flexible endoscopes, improperly programmed infusion pumps, sharps injuries and surgical fires are just some of the health technology hazards the ECRI Institute recommends you watch out for in 2011.
ECRI's annual list of the Top 10 Health Technology Hazards, designed to help facilities prioritize their safety initiatives for the coming year, includes many device and human errors common to the outpatient surgery setting:
Alarm hazards: ECRI says it's seen the most reports of alarm problems, such as staff becoming desensitized to alarms or failing to reset alarm settings, related to physiologic monitoring systems and ventilators.
Cross-contamination from flexible endoscopes: Thousands of patients had to be notified of potential exposure to infection from improperly reprocessing flexible endoscopes in 2010, indicating that this problem continues to persist after topping ECRI's list last year.
Health IT complications: As healthcare institutions increasingly adopt electronic health records and other technologies, they must "take steps now to keep HIT problems from exploding at their facilities," warns ECRI.
Luer misconnections: Misconnected tubing and catheters can result in serious patient injury or even death.
Oversedation during use of PCA infusion pumps: Programming errors with patient-controlled analgesic pumps can cause oversedation, which in turn can "lead to potentially life-threatening narcotic-induced respiratory depression," warns ECRI.
Sharps injuries: Despite institution-led sharps safety initiatives and the implementation of safety devices for needles, scalpels and other sharps, "clinicians continue to stick themselves and others."
Surgical fires: ECRI points to the new clinical practice recommendations for delivering oxygen during surgery that it developed with the Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation in 2009 to help prevent the approximately 600 OR fires that occur each year.
Defribrillator failures: You must take steps to ensure that defibrillators are "ready for use at a moment's notice."
For a few download of the full list and ECRI's recommended safety strategies, click here.
Irene Tsikitas
