RICHMOND, Va. (Ivanhoe Newswire) -- It's supposed to be a place you go to
for help, but sometimes, a trip to the hospital can turn into a patient's worst
nightmare. One in five Americans say themselves or a family member were victims
of a medical mistake. Now hospitals are taking steps to ensure patients stay
safe.
She looks like a typical young girl.
"Candace was the most beautiful, loving little girl," Mathy Milling Downing told
Ivanhoe. "She was everybody's friend."
But at 12, Candace downing was diagnosed with anxiety disorder and prescribed an
antidepressant. An overdose of the drug resulted in the unthinkable.
"I took her to the doctor that afternoon," explained Downing. "He said, ‘She's
great. Come back in two weeks,’ and my beautiful, happy, loving 12-year-old,
hanged herself."
Medication errors cause at least 70,000 deaths in the United States each year,
but now this machine, called PillPick, is making sure the right patients get the
right drugs.
"The pill picker prevents the wrong medication from being given to the patient
at the bedside," explained John Ilic, Pharm.D., of Loyola University Medical
Center in Maywood, Ill.
The robot puts a single dose of meds in a small plastic bag. Each bag has a bar
code identifying the drug. A nurse scans it along with a bar code on the
patient's wristband. If the computer detects the wrong drug or dose, an alert
sounds.
New technology is also putting the breaks on hospital-acquired infections. To
remind workers to wash up more often, a sensor, worn as a badge, detects whether
employees have washed their hands.
"A light on the badge will turn green, signifying that the health care worker
has washed his or her hands" Michael Edmond, M.D., epidemiologist at VCU Medical
Center in Richmond, Va., said.
Workers apply an alcohol-based hand sanitizer outside a patient's room. Once
they enter, the badge checks their hands for the presence of alcohol. A red
light means no alcohol. A green light means they can treat the patient.
Two new ways hospitals are improving care and saving lives.
There are two key questions experts say you must ask if you're a patient in the
hospital. The first is to see whether the hospital has had any major safety
issues with MRSA or other bacteria resistant to antibiotics. The second, what is
the turnover rate of nurses? If it's more than 10 percent, it could be a red
flag nurses aren't happy, which may compromise your care.
FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT:
Jim Ritter
Senior Manager, Media Relations
Loyola University Medical Center
jritter@lumc.edu
