New ECRI Institute Patient Safety Blog launched to share relevant information on patient safety topics

ECRI Institute®, an independent, nonprofit organization that researches the best approaches to improving patient care, announces the launch of its new Patient Safety Blog. The blog is ECRI Institute's newest communications tool and a way to share timely, relevant information on patient safety topics that are important to the healthcare community.

"Our goal is to inform, educate, and engage the healthcare community on a range of patient safety issues with attention-getting, to-the-point articles," says Ron Rothman, vice president of strategic planning and business development, ECRI Institute. "Ideally, we're hoping readers will respond actively to the blog's interactive format and that they will contribute perspectives on issues they're dealing with every day in a variety of healthcare settings."

Initial posts to ECRI Institute Patient Safety Blog addressed the Baxter infusion pump recall, disruptive physician behavior, medical error statistics, adverse event statistics, and other patient safety challenges.

ECRI Institute blog contributors will offer weekly posts on medical technology hazards and recalls, top risk management challenges, quality improvement recommendations, or findings from its works as a federally designated Patient Safety Organization. Some posts will be presented in series that cover hot topics over time, while other issues and news will be covered with one-time postings.

Blog writers include patient safety, risk management and quality improvement professionals, physicians, nurses, clinical engineers, medical device experts, and other healthcare leaders.

"We created this blog in the hope that it will create a new opportunity for dialogue between our experts and the healthcare community," states blog contributor Paul A. Anderson, director of risk management publications. "The blog will allow us to expand on healthcare issues based on both our research and feedback from readers."

Readers are encouraged to comment on each of the blog posts. As an independent non-profit with strict conflict-of-interest guidelines, ECRI Institute will review reader comments prior to posting. Responses from the contributing experts will be made based on these remarks.