RenalWEB Home Page
Last Updated 04/13/08
   

PubMed Searches

In December 1999, the U.S. Federal Government's Institute of Medicine issued a report entitled, "To Err is Human: Building a Safer Health System". This report cited between 44,000 and 98,000 deaths every year due to medical errors. While these numbers are disputed by some, they would make medical errors the 8th leading cause of death, ahead of breast cancer or AIDS.

Dialysis patient safety is a complex issue that involves highly specialized dialysis technology, staff training and turnover, cost pressures, reporting of problems, oversight and regulations, water purification, dialyzer reuse, medication errors, patient compliance, patient education, primary care, prevention, vascular access, infection, location and layout of dialysis units, and the increased age and comorbidities of the ESRD population.

Patient safety and injury prevention are most effective when it involves everyone in the healthcare delivery scheme. Towards that end, RenalWEB has accumulated this list of resources that addresses safety issues from many perspective and at several different levels of complexity.

RenalWEB has separate resource pages for Infection Control and Hepatitis.

Warning: Changes should never be made in a patient's treatment or care based solely on the information found here.  All patients have unique healthcare concerns and considerations and these must all be taken into account before any changes can be safely made.  All medical and therapeutic decisions must come from a qualified health care provider.  Read RenalWEB's Legal Disclaimer before proceeding.

  NEWS & LATEST ARTICLES
Similar drug-name pairs nearly double 2004 tally - article from American Medical News - April 14, 2008
What went wrong? Heparin probe highlights challenges of regulating global drugs market - article from the International Herald Tribune - April 11, 2008
Poorly kept dialysis unit is cleaned up - article from The Arizona Republic - April 11, 2008
Baxter's Heparin Killed Mother and Son, Family Says (Update2) - article from Bloomberg - April 10, 2008
Evacusled for Efficient Hospital Evacuations - article from medGadget - April 9, 2008
Pfizer warns of lung cancer with inhaled insulin - article from Yahoo!News - April 9, 2008
Heparin-linked deaths triple - article from the Chicago Tribune - April 8, 2008
Medical Errors Cost U.S. $8.8 Billion, result in 238,337 potentially preventable deaths, according to HealthGrades Study - 26-page (pdf) report from HealthGrades - April 8, 2008
Patients prefer to challenge nurses rather than doctors on safety issues - article from BMJ-British Medical Journal/EurekAlert! - April 2, 2008
Never Events’ and Health Care Ethics - article from H&HN - April 1, 2008
The Drug Scare That Exposed a World of Hurt - article from Blue Ridge Now - March 30, 2008
Medications Approved by FDA Under Deadlines Set by Congress More Likely To Have Safety Problems Later, NEJM Study Finds - article from Kaiser Network - March 27, 2008
Australia Issues Warning on Contaminated Heparin (Update1) - article from Bloomberg - March 26, 2008
FDA Says There is No Heparin Shortage - article from News Inferno - March 25, 2008
Latex Gloves Becoming a Thing of the Past - article from Nurse.com - March 24, 2008
Another Heparin Maker Recalls Tainted Blood Thinner (Correct) - article from Bloomberg - March 21, 2008
Baxter's Heparin Contaminant Identified by U.S. FDA (Update6) - article from Bloomberg - March 19, 2008
Top of Page

  WEB RESOURCES
National Nosocomial Infections Surveillance (NNIS) System Report, data summary from January 1992 through June 2004, issued October 2004 - (pdf format requires Adobe Acrobat Reader) from the National Center for Infectious Diseases (NCID)
ESRD Patient Safety Report (pdf format) - January 31, 2001 - from the Renal Physicians Association web site
Patient safety Network (PSNet) web site
Joint Commission International Center for Patient Safety web site
National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN) - from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention web site
2007 National Healthcare Quality & Disparities Reports - from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)
saferhealthcare web site (UK organization)
QualityTools web site
Using Human Factors Engineering to Improve Patient Safety - Association for Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI) web site. Cost is $70 for AAMI members / $80 nonmembers.
Promoting ESRD Patient Safety: For Caregivers - (requires Microsoft Word™) document from the ESRD Network 12 web site
Doctor-Robot Service - free online version of Medical Diagnostics Program Symptomat as a way to reduce medical errors
FDA Video on Patient Safety Topics: Erythropoietic Agents and Antibody-Mediated Anemias - from the U. S. Food and Drug Administration
Prevent Dangerous Hemodialysis Catheter Disconnections article from FDA's Center for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH)
Electrical Safety Manual, 2008: A Comprehensive Guide to Electrical Safety Standards for Healthcare Facilities - Association for Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI) web site. Cost is $85 for AAMI members / $135 nonmembers.
Preventing Falls Among Older Adults article from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention web site
Protecting the Rights, Safety, and Welfare of Study Subjects - Supervisory Responsibilities of Investigators from the FDA's Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER)
ANA Nursing Practice Information Infrastructure web site
Safe Staffing Saves Lives web site from the American Nurses Association (ANA)
Dialysis Collection of AAMI Dialysis Standards and Guidance Documents Revised for 2003 - Association for Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI) web site. Cost is $195 for AAMI members / $275 nonmembers.
Top of Page

  ESSENTIALS AND CLASSICS
FDA Patient Safety News - video from the U. S. Food and Drug Administration - July 2006
Advances in Patient Safety: From Research to Implementation from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) web site
Free Instructional Video: “Discussing Unanticipated Outcomes and Disclosing Medical Errors” from the Emory University Center for Ethics
First in a series of publications from the Institute of Medicine's Quality of Health Care in America project. To Err Is Human: Building a Safer Health System - on line book by Linda T. Kohn, Janet M. Corrigan, and Molla S. Donaldson, Editors; Committee on Quality of Health Care in America, Institute of Medicine; Copyright © 2000.
Safe Patient Handling and Movement - from the U.S. Dept. of Veterans Affairs web site

Second in a series of publications from the Institute of Medicine's Quality of Health Care in America project. Crossing the Quality Chasm: A New Health System for the 21st Century. Overview from the Renal Physicians Association web site

Workbook for Designing, Implementing, and Evaluating a Sharps Injury Prevention Program - from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention web site
Internal Bleeding: the Truth Behind America's Terrifying Epidemic of Medical Mistakes by Robert M. Wachter, MD and Kaveh G. Shojania, MD (Rugged Land Books, 2004)
ASHHRA Disaster Planning Guide - ($259 members/$329 nonmembers) from the American Society for Healthcare Human Resources Administration web site
Top of Page

  PUBMED SEARCHES
PubMed Search Tool of the National Library Of Medicine's MEDLINE Database. These links allows you to search through over 11 million indexed articles. Due to copyright laws, only the abstracts (summaries) of the articles are usually listed. Some articles appear in full text on the publishers' web sites that are linked to PubMed. This page provides an Overview of PubMed. All these search results links are continually updated by the Library of Congress.
biocompatibility and dialysis
pyrogen and dialysis
equipment malfunction and dialysis
hemolysis and hemodialysis
chloramines and hemodialysis
disequilibrium syndrome and dialysis
dialysis dementia or dialysis encephalopathy
air embolism and dialysis
medical error and dialysis
patient safety and dialysis
Top of Page

  DISCUSSION FORUM
General Dialysis Nursing Issues and Questions (No dedicated RenalWEB forum)
Dialysis Technical Forum  
Top of Page

  RELATED TOPICS
AIDS (auto immune deficiency syndrome) and dialysis - PubMed search
VRE (vancomycin-resistant enterococci) and dialysis - PubMed search
MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) and dialysis - PubMed search
Guidelines & Recommendations for Immunizations - infection control practices from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
hepatitis AND dialysis - PubMed search - Continually Updated!
hepatitis B - PubMed search - Continually Updated!
hepatitis C - PubMed search - Continually Updated!
hepatitis AND vaccine - PubMed search - Continually Updated!
Top of Page

  UPCOMING EVENTS
Listing of National Patient Safety Foundation Seminars
Listing of The American Health Quality Association Events Calendar
Top of Page

  PRODUCTS
Top of Page

  INPUT / SUGGESTIONS
E-mail to RenalWEB on the Hepatitis Topic
Top of Page