Category Archives: Uncategorized

The Drive to Zero: Reducing Medication Errors at Nationwide Children’s Hospital

The processes involved in prescribing, dispensing, administering, and monitoring medications to patients are complex and prone to error.  In fact, medication errors are the most common type of medical error, and they are a significant cause of preventable harm. This is especially true for hospitalized children for whom medication errors are about three times more [...]

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Making History: President Obama and Governor Strickland Visit Nationwide Children’s

President Obama’s Recovery Summer project kicked off Friday on the corner of Livingston and Parson’s and it was celebrated as the 10,000th road project paid for by government-funded stimulus money. This project includes new additions of road lanes and the widening of sidewalks in the downtown Columbus area. Governor Strickland was also welcomed as he [...]

Breaking the Language Barrier

Failure to communicate is a known cause of serious medical errors.  Data from the Joint Commission indicates that communication failures contribute to more than 70% of medical errors. This problem is exaggerated when patient-provider communication is complicated by language barriers, especially among immigrant populations. As many of 25% of the immigrant Asian, Hispanic and Pacific [...]

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Summertime, and the ‘camping’ is easy… but is it safe?

This summer nearly 11 million children and young adults will head off to summer camp. Most will have a great time, but some may have problems. Sometimes, children have adjustment issues when they go away from home for the first time. Others may experience physical injuries that complicate their camp experience. What do parents need [...]

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“Having our Babies” – Collaborating to Reduce Preterm Births – Part 2

Ohio perinatal outcomes are not good. The March of Dimes has given Ohio an “F” for our poor performance at reducing the prematurity rate in our state. In part one of this podcast, I introduced the Ohio Better Birth Outcomes (OBBO) initiative. This community-wide collaboration is how Central Ohio is addressing the problem of prematurity [...]

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“Having Our Babies” – Collaborating to Reduce Preterm Births

In an average week, 2,896 babies are born in Ohio.  385 of these babies are born prematurely.  253 weigh less than three and 1/3 pounds.  23 babies will die before they reach their first birthday.  Sadly, the rate of preterm birth in Ohio has increased 21 percent over the last decade.  Other birth outcomes are [...]

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Growin’, Growin’, Growin’! Nationwide Children’s Keeps a Growin’

In the fall of 2008, Nationwide Children’s Hospital broke ground on a new 12-floor main hospital that is scheduled for completion in 2012. This new tower will be 750,000 square feet and will be surrounded by six acres of green space featuring parks and healing garden spaces for patients and families. The new building will [...]

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"I feel good…" Happy, Healthy, Healthcare Workers

Healthy employees are happy employees, and happy employees make better healthcare workers. That is one goal for the Nationwide Children’s Hospital Employee Wellness Program. More than one-third of large employers in the U.S. have such wellness programs. They are designed to give employees “the information, tools and support they need to take charge of their [...]

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Movin’ On Up…to the ’4 East’ Side: Emergency Department Wait Times

With more than 80,000 visits per year, Nationwide Children’s Hospital has the 2nd busiest pediatric emergency department in the United States. Providing timely medical care to that many kids can be a real challenge. Yet, Nationwide Children’s Hospital has some of the best throughput times of any emergency department in America. What is patient throughput? [...]

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Infant Car Seat Safety: If it’s high up, it’s high risk!

When infant car seats are properly positioned in the car, they can save hundreds, if not thousands of lives each year. But when they’re used improperly outside the car, these safety devices can lead to serious injury. When you place your infant in a car seat on a counter or table, or any high surface, [...]

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