Top Ten Health Technology Hazards for 2015

Each year, the ECRI Institute publishes a Top 10 Health Technology Hazards list to raise awareness of the potential dangers associated with the use of medical devices, and to help healthcare providers minimize the risk of technology-related adverse events.

The 2015 Top 10 Health Technology Hazards list highlights the top 10 safety topics that ECRI deems crucial for hospitals to address in the coming year, and describes safety issues associated with those technologies.

To develop the annual list, ECRI Institute’s multidisciplinary staff of engineers, scientists, nurses, physicians, and patient safety analysts draw on the resources of the Institute’s 45-year history, as well as expertise and insight gained through testing and analyzing healthcare technologies. This includes examining health technology-related problem reports from hospitals and health systems worldwide, and reports received through the ECRI Institute Patient Safety Organization (PSO).

For the fourth year in a row, clinical alarm hazards, a Joint Commission National Patient Safety Goal, remains number one on ECRI’s list. This year, the report draws particular attention to alarm configuration practices. ECRI Institute is aware of several deaths and other cases of severe patient harm that may have been prevented with more effective alarm policies and practices.

Recall management, which appears on the list for the first time, points to overwhelmed recall and safety-alert programs as a potential for serious consequences for healthcare facilities and patients. ECRI experts are concerned that existing hospital recall tracking programs are not keeping pace with the growing number of medical device recalls issued each year. FDA reports that the annual number of medical device recalls nearly doubled between 2003 and 2012, from 604 recalls to 1,190 annually.

For each topic, ECRI Institute describes the hazard, presents recommendations for minimizing the risks, and lists helpful resources that readers can access to learn more about the topic.

America’s Hospitals: Improving Quality and Safety – The Joint Commission’s Annual Report 2014

America’s Hospitals: Improving Quality and Safety – The Joint Commission’s Annual Report 2014 includes The Joint Commission’s list of Top Performer on Key Quality Measures® hospitals. 36.9 percent of accredited hospitals reporting accountability measure performance data to The Joint Commission for 2013 are Top Performer hospitals (1,224 hospitals) – the highest percentage achieving Top Performer status ever.

The annual report also summarizes the performance of 3,300 Joint Commission-accredited hospitals on 46 accountability measures of evidence-based care processes closely linked to positive patient outcomes. Hospital performance on accountability measures has improved significantly over time, greatly enhancing the quality of care provided in Joint Commission-accredited hospitals.

In 2013, Joint Commission-accredited hospitals achieved 97.6 percent composite accountability measure performance on 17.5 million opportunities to perform care processes closely linked to positive patient outcomes – an improvement of 15.8 percentage points since 2002 and 2.2 percentage points since 2009.