Tom Utecht, M.D., is responsible for maintaining high quality of care and patient safety at all Community’s hospitals. Dr. Utecht is an experienced emergency medicine physician and a faculty member for the UCSF Fresno Emergency Medicine Residency Program.
I recently listened to a presentation that speaks volumes to the "can do" spirit of our institution. One of the Joint Commission National Patient Safety Goals relates to handoffs. As a patient’s care is transitioned from one care provider to another, errors can happen. Several years ago residents at UMC developed a homegrown spreadsheet to communicate with each other as they sign out patients. Recently, Dr. Natalia Volkova worked with Jack Buchanan from IS to incorporate this spreadsheet into LastWord and markedly improve it. Using this tool, physicians are able to more safely and efficiently transfer information as they handoff a patient. Nurses will also be able check this information to understand the problem list identified by the physicians as well as quickly determine which physician to contact for care concerns. While we may not have the most recent technology in Clinical Information Systems (we’ll be fixing this soon), a bit of innovation and a can-do attitude go a long way.
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About tutecht
Tom Utecht, M.D., is responsible for maintaining high quality of care and patient safety at all Community’s hospitals. Dr. Utecht is an experienced emergency medicine physician and a faculty member for the UCSF Fresno Emergency Medicine Residency Program.