Sentinel health events

Occupational Sentinel Health Events An Up-Dated List for Physician Recognition and Public Health Surveillance, Mullan RJ, Murthy LI. (Am J Ind Med. 1991 19 775-799). 

Applying the SHE concept to the field of occupational and environmental health defines the Sentinel Health Event (Occupational) (SHEA)) as an unnecessary disease, disability, or untimely death which is occupation or chemical exposure related and whose occurrence may ... 

The observation of trends in time (Table 2), e.g., an increase in the proportion of a certain sensitization, can as a sentinel health event give rise to aimed... 

Table 3. Clinical epidemiology as a surveillance system II sentinel health events (i.e. striking sensitization rates urging for further studies and preventive action)...

Rosen, R. Freeman, S. 1992, Occupational contact dermatitis in New South Wales , Australasian Journal of Dermatolc, vol. 33, pp. 1-10 Rutstein, D. et al. 1983, Sentinel health events (occupational) a basis for physicians recognition and public health surveillance , American Journal of Public Health, vol. 73, pp- 1054-62 Schaapveld, H. 1993, How do you gain management commitment to OHS , proceedings of Conference on Strategic OHS Management, Sydney HR Scholz, J. Gray, W. 1990, A behavioural approach to compliance OSHA... 

Omission errors, incorrect doses, and prescribing errors were the top three causes of medication errors reported by health systems in 2002. The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) tracks sentinel events submitted to it by accredited heathcare facilities. A sentinel event is an unexpected occurrence involving death or serious physical or psychological injury, or the risk thereof. Table 16.3 lisfs fhe roof causes of medication errors reported by JCAHO-accredited organizations. ... 

The first element in risk assessment is knowledge of the chemical exposures of a workforce to see if a known sensitizer is present. A chemical becomes accepted as a cause of occupational asthma if there are at least two convincing clinical case reports from independent centres. Specialist clinicians are likely to be aware of the published literature at an early stage and may be a useful source of informal information. There is currently much interest in publishing lists of sensitizers. One is available in a recent textbook (Chan-Yeung and Malo, 1993). The Health and Safety Executive in the UK, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health in the USA and other agencies may publish lists with updates. Other sources of information on causes are reporting schemes such as SWORD (Surveillance of Work-related and Occupational Respiratory Disease) in the UK (Ross el al., 1995) and SENSOR (Sentinel Event Notification System for Occupational Risks) in some states in the USA (Matte et al., 1990). 

Sentinel event alert. Safely implementing health information and converging technologies. Jt Comm. Dec 2008 11 (42). http //www.jointcommission.Org/assets/l/18/SEA 42.PDE... 

Lachenbruch PA, Mttes J. 2007. Sentinel event methods for monitoring unanticipated adverse events. In Advances in Statistical Methods for the Health Sciences, J-L Auget, N Balakrishnan, M Mesbah, G Molenberghs (eds.). Birkhauser, Boston, MA, pp. 61-74. 

The Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) in the United States recommends that all health care facilities in the country respond to sentinel events by using RCA within 45 days of their occurrence. 

Joint Commission on Accreditation of Health Care Organizations. Conducting Root Cause Analysis in Response to a Sentinel Event. Oakhrook Terrace, El. Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, 1996. 

Notification of The Health Care Organization s Officials Regarding Sentinel Events. Risk Management immediately notifies the chief of staff, the chief of the professional staff division, the vice president of medical affairs, the vice president of patient care, the CEO, and the COO of a sentinel event. 

Emergency Hold Orders Mental Health/Chemical Dependency Medical Accidents and Disclosure, including Sentinel Events Medical Device Reporting Infant Abduction... 

Liang, B. A., and Storti, K. Creating Problems as a Part of the Solution The JCAHO Sentinel Event Policy, Legal Issues, and Patient Safety. Jounta/ of Health Law, 2000,55(2), 263-285. 

Data come from insurance claims and administrative databases, including ouQta-tient dispensing codes, inpatient and ouQiatient diagnoses, and procedural codes. Theoretically, therefore, Mini-Sentinel should be able to provide the number of exposed lives as weU as outcome information that will permit assessment of cardiovascular event incidence with high statistical fidelity in a cost-effective manner. Mini-Sentinel has active project teams for statistical method development, identification of health outcomes, and validation of health outcomes. While the distributed nature of the approach currently limits the number of searches and the ability to assess potential safety issues in a more real-time manner, the EHR approach may be able to provide similar capabilities in a non-distributed manner in the future (Sager et al. 2015). 

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