Essentials Of Modern Hospital Safety

It is ironic that those whose job it is to save lives often find themselves injured in the course of performing their duties. In fact, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, healthcare workers have higher injury rates than agriculture workers, miners, and construction workers. The Handbook of Modern Hospital Safety, Second Edition covers exposure paradigms and offers solutions and models of protection for these individuals, presenting the latest science and intervention strategies that have proven successful in the scientific community. Extensively revised, this second edition explores a host of hazardous conditions that are faced by healthcare workers in today’s hospitals, including: infection and infectious diseases back injuries needlesticks workplace violence slip, trip, and fall injuries ergonomic issues electrocautery smoke toxic drugs ethylene oxide aldehydes pentamidine ribavirin In this long-awaited update to William Charney’s seminal work, experts from leading hospitals, universities, and health organizations explore these health risks and suggested preventive measures, discuss recent research and new information on technology to protect workers, cover new legislation and regulations, and provide insight into the philosophy of creating a safe hospital culture.

Continuing its coverage of the issues of occupational health in a hospital setting, this volume includes new issues not covered in the previous volumes, including violence in the health care setting, lasers and electrocautery smoke, operating room safety, epidemiology of hospital worker injury, and training concerns. Additional and updated material in the areas of tuberculosis, needlesticks, medical waste management, and back injury prevention is also included.

This unique book contains vital information on the identification, evaluation and control of hospital health hazards. Written by people in the hospital setting, this book gives you real data-real solutions. It covers all new developments in this vitally important area. This complete guide to hospital safety gives you valuable information on back injuries, stress, appropriate staffing levels for efficient safety and monitoring, reproductive hazards, trace anesthetic gases, needlestick injuries, asbestos control, ribavirin, infectious waste, hazardous waste, radioisotopes-everything you need to ensure safety for your hospital workers.

Traditionally, health care worker injury exposure data is analyzed one category at a time, which tends to isolate the researcher from a more global perspective of an industry-wide analysis. The Epidemic of Health Care Worker Injury: An Epidemiology provides an industry-wide analysis that facilitates a wide-angle view of the dangers of working in health care, by focusing on the major categories of health care worker injury: needlesticks, the most prevalent risk back injury, the most expensive risk violence and assault-health care workers account for more than half of all assaulted service workers infectious diseases such as tuberculosis and hepatitis C latex allergy, which now affects almost 10% of health-care workers managed care and its profound effect on the injury rates through downsizing, deskilling, and increased acuity injuries to different populations of health care workers home health care injury rates long-term care injuries, which have doubled in the last decade

Medical error as defined in Epidemic of Medical Errors and Hospital-Acquired Infections: Systemic and Social Causes encompasses many categories including, but not limited to, medical error, hospital-acquired infections, medication errors, deaths from misdiagnosis, deaths from infectious diarrhea in nursing homes, surgical and post-operative complications, lethal blood clots in veins, and excessive radiation from CT scans. When the deaths from these categories are counted they become the leading cause of fatality to Americans, outpacing cancer and heart disease. Add the numbers of fatalities (mortality) to the millions each year who are injured (morbidity) and whose quality of life is forever effected, and an epidemic of harm is defined. The book describes the many systemic and social causes of medical error and iatrogenic events, all of which are cited in the peer-review science, that have a direct effect on the epidemic of patient injury, but are rarely or never considered. These systemic causes include factory medicine (for-profit medicine), staffing ratios in clinical and non-clinical departments, shift work, healthcare working conditions, lack of accountability, legal issues that conflict with patient safety issues, bullying and hierarchical relationships, training of healthcare workers that never rises to the level of risk, and injury to healthcare workers. The premise of the book is that if the systemic or social causes are not considered or changed, then medical error will continue to be an epidemic and no substantial impact in the numbers will be realized. An expert with 30 years of experience as a health and safety officer in healthcare and as an activist for community health and safety issues, editor and author William Charney explores the issues surrounding medical errors and examines the science behind possible solutions. He presents an efficient dialogue that produces a more systemic exploration and targeting of the causes of medical error and drives an exacting message: we are dealing with an epidemic of harm, and unless systemic issues are solved, little will change to subdue the epidemic. Information on the June 2012 Conference on the Epidemic of Medical Errors & Hospital Acquired Infections in the US and Canada: the Systemic Causes can be found on the CRC Press Issuu page.

Nursing personnel play an integral role in healthcare and medical delivery organizations. Nurses not only work to keep patients safe, but must also contend with a number of safety and health risks. Illustrating the occupational risks nurses face, Healthcare Safety for Nursing Personnel: An Organizational Guide to Achieving Results addresses healthcare safety as related to nursing personnel risks, hazards, and responsibilities in hospitals and healthcare facilities. The book begins with an introduction to nursing safety that supplies a fundamental understanding of patient, nursing, and facility safety. Next, it delves into the range of safety issues that nurses must contend with. Topics covered include administrative area safety, bloodborne pathogens, workplace violence, infection control and prevention, emergency management, fire safety, and radiation hazards. Examining the concepts and principles of patient safety as related to organizational dynamics, culture, system methods, and key patient safety initiatives, the book supplies essential knowledge of healthcare safety risks, challenges, and controls. It includes information on leadership, management, communication skills, and understanding accidents. The book includes helpful resources in the appendices, such as a nurse safety perception survey, an accident causal factor chart, sample ergonomics symptoms report, sample TB exposure control plan, and a model respirator plan for small organizations. Complete with review exercises in each chapter, this book is ideal for certification training in nursing programs and as a reference for developing nursing in-service safety sessions.