Regardless of where we practice medicine, it is up to us as individual physicians to ensure the highest quality of care that we can deliver to our patients. At each location, the demography and cultural composition of our patients have revealed different approaches to language barriers, self-understanding of disease, and even the perception of pain.
As a physician, I wrote a recent essay that describes the obstacles I believe most significantly impede the adoption of standards of healthcare delivery in these diverse settings.
I have obtained Six Sigma and LEAN certification and patient safety curricula, and published work on outcomes-based research studies and clinical trials on informatics tools in peer-reviewed journals.
Perioperative Workflow Optimization with Lean management system
Continuous Practice Improvement with Six Sigma DMAIC
Cefazolin (brand names Ancef, Kefsol, etc) is the most common antibiotic given to prevent infection prior to most surgeries that involve a skin incision.
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🛑Even after more than 30 years of use and multiple guidelines, there is a HUGE variation in the manner this drug is administered. Common questions include:
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☝️ whether to give the medication;
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☝️how much to give (usually based on weight)
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☝️how frequent to redose it; and,
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☝️what to do if the patient has a penicillin allergy.
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🛑Much of this variation is attributed to:
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👉discordance between anesthesia, surgical subspecialty, and institutional guidelines, which are different at every location.
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👉Lack of consistent evidence from research to show that the administration or timing of these medications has a significant impact on infection.
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IMHO, this very issue can be reduced by multidisciplinary conversations and large studies of national databases to show the small differences that if an antibiotic is not given per protocol.
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📞📧🤜Please contact me at Aalap.c.shah@gmail.com to discuss strategies to decrease patient errors and improve compliance with best practices at your #hospitalor clinic.
Aalap Shah, MD, is a board certified anesthesiologist, specializing in general adult and pediatric anesthesiology.
