What to Ask Healthcare Providers

National Patient Safety Week

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I am honored to be a patient advocate with the Patient and Family Engagement Network of the Partnership for Patients. The Partnership for Patients initiative is a public-private partnership working to improve the quality, safety and affordability of health care for all Americans, and I am very proud of its efforts to achieve its goal of 40% reduction in hospital acquired conditions and a 20% reduction in hospital readmissions compared to 2010.

As patient advocates, our role with the Partnership is to encourage and support collaboration between healthcare providers and patients and families to improve healthcare and reduce cost. Along with other advocates, I posted to the National Patient Safety Foundation’s website blog to highlight Patient Safety Awareness Week 2014. In the words of fellow advocate Helen Haskell, ” Patient Safety Awareness Week has been an important symbol of hospital involvement in patient safety. It is not just about safety, but about awareness of all that patients can teach health care providers about themselves.”

Following is my blog celebrating the patient/provider partnership. Read more

One IV Bag, One IV Tubing and Only One Time

Evelyn McKnight is a survivor of the Nebraska outbreak, in which 99 cancer patients contracted Hepatitis C through reuse of an IV bag on multiple patients.

One IV Bag, One IV Tubing, and Only One Time
One IV Bag, One IV Tubing, and Only One Time

Recently, I had what started out as a minor health situation. But as time went on, I experienced a cascade of health complications which resulted in a not-so-minor situation. I neared dehydration, and I would need IV fluids if my condition continued to  deteriorate. The thought of an IV infusion panicked me, and I asked for 24 hours before we began IV fluids.

As I chugged Gatorade, I tried not to think about the last time I had an IV infusion, which was during chemotherapy in 2000. The nurse reused syringes to access a mutidose saline bag. When a nurse used a syringe on a patient with known Hepatitis C and then reused the same syringe to access the IV bag,  the IV bag was contaminated. This happened multiple times during the day; in fact, it was found during an investigation by Nebraska Health and Human Services that after a day’s use, the bag was cloudy, pink, with bits of sediment. In this way, 99 Nebraskans contracted Hepatitis C. Read more