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Stimulus $$$ funding S.A. nursing project - Hospital patients would benefit from new practices put in place through the program
>Federal stimulus money continues to trickle into the San Antonio economy. The latest announcement is a $3 million grant that could help improve hospital care around the country.
The nation's 7500 hospitals employ five million people. Over half of those workers are nurses, professionals providing beside care. They are on the front lines of health care, dealing with many life and death decisions.
The has been awarded $3 million to help improve care by creating a national network to study new ways to do things better.
"Our hospital care is very complex," said Kathleen Stevens, Ed.D., RN, a nursing professor who will lead this two-year grant. "And the improvement science that occurs is occurring in many pockets. It's not highly tested because we do it in one location but we don't know if it words in another."
A decade ago, a landmark Institute of Medicine report showed 100,000 lives were lost each year in hospitals due to medical errors. Small changes have helped reduce those figures.?
***Signs to warn of patients who are a falling risk?
***Hand sanitizer outside each and every patient room to prevent infections?
***More rigorous protocols for moving and positioning patients to reduce bed sores?
But more needs to be done to cut down on medication errors and increase satisfaction among nurses. Small changes could lure more young people into the field and avert a nursing shortage crisis.
This National Institutes of Health project will help spread new ideas rapidly. "And so the point of this project is to knit together and elevate the strength of the science and then to spread them rapidly," explained Stevens. "This can save lives."
So far, the U.T. Health Science Center has received $29 million through the .
