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Page 38

allied

academies

Journal of Nutrition and Human Health | Volume 2

&

October 29-30, 2018 | London, UK

Joint Event

Nutrition and Fitness

16

th

International Conference on

3

rd

World Congress on

Card i o l ogy

Assessing performance and reliability in cardiovascular care

Paul Barach

Wayne State University, USA

P

atients hospitalized for cardiovascular problems are

vulnerable to experiencing medication errors, as they

are commonly prescribed high-risk medications such as

anticoagulants and antiplatelet agents. The cardiac surgical

operating room (OR) is a complex environment in which

highly trained subspecialists interact with each other using

sophisticated equipment to care for patients with severe

cardiac disease and significant comorbidities. Thousands of

patient lives have been saved or significantly improved with

the advent of modern cardiac surgery. Nonetheless, the highly

skilled and dedicated personnel in cardiac ORs are human and

will make errors. Refined techniques, advanced technologies,

and enhanced coordination of care have led to significant

improvements in cardiac surgery outcomes. However, more

than 10 years after the Institute of Medicine report,there

is little evidence that much progress has been achieved in

reducing or preventing errors.

The tools to measure potential risks and interventions to

improve patient safety are highly validated and yet have been

implemented in a very uneven and scatter manner. We must

extend the conversation of perioperative cardiac outcomes

and expand our assessment beyond patient factors and the

technical skills of the cardiologist /surgeon /anesthesia/

nurse; to extend assessment of skills beyond bench models

to the operating theater and its equipment; to provide a

basis for assessing interventions; and to provide a deeper

understanding of surgical outcomes. We must consider the

human/environmental factors that have been found to be

of important in achieving safe, high-quality performance

in other high-risk environments. Issues that impact human

performance and increase the risk of error include factors

that directly enable decision making, such as perception,

attention, memory, reasoning, judgement and factors that

directly enable decision execution, such as communication

and the ability to carry out the intended action. We must

address the implementation gap between what is known to

work and what is actually implmented.

e:

pbarach@gmail.com

Notes: