Maternal exposure to environmental endocrine disruptors during pregnancy is associated with pediatric germ cell tumors

Enhancing Healthcare Accountability for Administrators: Fostering Transparency for Patient Safety and Quality Enhancement

Transparency in healthcare organizations is essential for creating a culture of patient-centered care where patients are respected, informed, and actively engaged in their health and well-being. Organizational transparency is a crucial element in healthcare, enhancing patient safety and quality improvement. Transparency involves open communication about healthcare organizations' performance, outcomes, and processes, leading to improved accountability, trust, and patient engagement. Transparent organizations prioritize patient-centered care, involving patients in decision-making and fostering shared mental models between healthcare providers and patients. Psychological safety is vital for organizational transparency. Patient safety reporting systems play a key role in transparency, allowing anonymous reporting of safety concerns and incidents. These systems facilitate early risk identification, continuous improvement, and compliance with regulatory requirements. Transparency in reporting encourages a culture of openness, learning from near misses, and addressing systemic issues and human errors. It aligns with ethical principles, potentially mitigating legal challenges. This review synthesizes key themes, including the importance of patient-centered care, the role of psychological safety in fostering transparency, and the effectiveness of patient safety reporting systems.

The role of perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS) exposure in inflammation of intestinal tissues and intestinal carcinogenesis

PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are organofluorine substances that are used commercially in products like non-stick cookware, food packaging, personal care products, fire-fighting foam, etc. These chemicals have several different subtypes made of varying numbers of carbon and fluorine atoms. PFAS substances that have longer carbon chains, such as PFOS (perfluorooctane sulfonic acid), can potentially pose a significant public health risk due to their ability to bioaccumulate and persist for long periods of time in the body and the environment. The National Academies Report suggests there is some evidence of PFOS exposure and gastrointestinal (GI) inflammation contributing to ulcerative colitis. Inflammatory bowel diseases such as ulcerative colitis are precursors to colorectal cancer. However, evidence about the association between PFOS and colorectal cancer is limited and has shown contradictory findings. This review provides an overview of population and preclinical studies on PFOS exposure and GI inflammation, metabolism, immune responses, and carcinogenesis. It also highlights some mitigation approaches to reduce the harmful effects of PFOS on GI tract and discusses the dietary strategies, such as an increase in soluble fiber intake, to reduce PFOS-induced alterations in cellular lipid metabolism. More importantly, this review demonstrates the urgent need to better understand the relationship between PFOS and GI pathology and carcinogenesis, which will enable development of better approaches for interventions in populations exposed to high levels of PFAS, and in particular to PFOS.

Implementation of Health Information Systems to Improve Patient Identification

Wellbeing can be ensured in society through quality healthcare, a minimum of medical errors, and the improved performance of healthcare professionals. To this end, health information systems have been implemented in hospitals, with this implementation representing progress in medicine and information technologies. As a result, life expectancy has significantly increased, standards in healthcare have been raised, and public health has improved. This progress is influenced by the process of managing healthcare organizations and information systems. While hospitals tend to adapt health information systems to reduce errors related to patient misidentification, the rise in the occurrence and recording of medical errors in Lebanon resulting from failures to correctly identify patients reveals that such measures remain insufficient due to unknown factors. This research aimed to investigate the effect of health information systems (HISs) and other factors related to work-related conditions on reductions in patient misidentification and related consequences. The empirical data were collected from 109 employees in Neioumazloum Hospital in Lebanon. The results revealed a correlation between HISs and components and the effects of other factors on patient identification. These other factors included workload, nurse fatigue, a culture of patient safety, and lack of implementation of patient identification policies. This paper provides evidence from a Lebanese hospital and paves the way for further studies aiming to explore the role of information technologies in adopting HISs for work performance and patient satisfaction. Improved care for patients can help achieve health equality, enhance healthcare delivery performance and patient safety, and decrease the numbers of medical errors.

Official health communications are failing PFAS-contaminated communities

BACKGROUND

Environmental health agencies are critical sources of information for communities affected by chemical contamination. Impacted residents and their healthcare providers often turn to federal and state agency webpages, fact sheets, and other documents to weigh exposure risks and interventions.

MAIN BODY

This commentary briefly reviews scientific evidence concerning per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) for health outcomes that concern members of affected communities and that have compelling or substantial yet differing degree of scientific evidence. It then features official documents in their own language to illustrate communication gaps, as well as divergence from scientific evidence and from best health communication practice. We found official health communications mostly do not distinguish between the needs of heavily contaminated communities characterized by high body burdens and the larger population with ubiquitous but substantially smaller exposures. Most health communications do not distinguish levels of evidence for health outcomes and overemphasize uncertainty, dismissing legitimate reasons for concern in affected communities. Critically, few emphasize helpful approaches to interventions. We also provide examples that can be templates for improvement.

CONCLUSIONS

Immediate action should be undertaken to review and improve official health communications intended to inform the public and health providers about the risks of PFAS exposure and guide community and medical decisions.

Enhanced hospital-wide communication and interaction by team training to improve patient safety

Communication errors are the most important cause of adverse events in healthcare. The current study aimed to improve hospital-wide employee teamwork and reduce adverse medical events for patients arising from miscommunication. In our hospital, when patient safety incidents and accidents occur, staff from various occupations submit incident reports to the Department of Patient Safety via an electronic reporting system; over 11,000 cases are reported each year. We surveyed the incident reports submitted in our institution from 2016 to 2018. All incidents related to miscommunication were identified, and relevant information was collected from the original electronic incident reports. Incident severity classification is commonly divided into near-miss or adverse events. We extracted only the required incident information items for this study, and processed information concerning individuals (e.g., reporters and target patients) anonymously. This study was approved by the Institutional Review Board of the study hospital. The authors declare no conflicts of interest associated with this study. Team training for all employees reduced adverse events for patients. The coefficient of determination (R squared value) was -0.32. This suggests our approach may be slightly but significantly effective for developing the fundamental strengths of the medical team. Quality improvement is continuous, and seamless efforts to improve the effectiveness of medical teams at our hospital will continue.