Background: Patient falls are considered a challenge to the patient’s safety in hospitals, which, in addition to increasing the length of stay and costs, may also result in severe injuries or even the death of the patient. This study aims to investigate the associations between risk factors among fallers in comparison with the control group. Methods: A prospective nested case control study was performed on 185 patients who fell and 1141 controls were matched with the patients at risk of fall in the same ward and during the same time. This study was conducted in a university educational hospital in Tehran with 800 beds during a 9-month period. The data included demographics, comorbidities, admission details, types of medication, clinical conditions, and activities before or during the fall. The data was collected from clinical records, hospital information system, error reporting system and observations, and the interviews with the fallers, their families and care givers (physicians, nurses, etc). Data analysis was conducted through time-based matching using a multi-level analysis. Results: In a multilevel model including patient-related, medication, and care-related variables, the factors that were significantly associated with an increased risk of patient falls included: longer length of stay (odds ratio [OR] = 1.01; CI=0.32 to 0.73), using chemotherapy drugs, sedatives, anticonvulsants, benzodiazepines, and angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors, visual acuity (OR=6.93; CI=4.22 to 11.38), balance condition (OR= 6.41; CI=4.51 to 9.11), manual transfer aid (OR=8.47; CI=5.65 to 12.69), urinary incontinence (OR= 8.47, CI= 5.65 to 12.69), and cancer (OR=2.86, CI=1.84-4.44). These factors were found to be associating with more odds for a falling accident among patients. Several characteristics such as fall history (OR=0.48; CI= 1.003 to 1.02), poly-pharmacy (OR=1.37, CI=00.85 to 2.2), stroke (OR=0.94, CI= 0.44 to 2.02), and nurse to patient ratio (incidence rate ratio=1.01, CI=0.01 to 0.03) were not significantly associated with falling in hospitals. Conclusion: It seems that a combination of both patient-related factors and history of medication should be considered. Moreover, modifiable clinical characteristics of patients such as vision improvement, provision of manual transfer aid, diabetes control, regular toilet program, and drug modification should be considered during the formulation of interventions.

Failure Mode and Effect Analysis (FMEA) is a method used to assess the risk of failures and harms to patients during the medical process and to identify the associated clinical issues. The aim of this study was to conduct an assessment of blood transfusion process in a teaching general hospital, using FMEA as the method. A structured FMEA was recruited in our study performed in 2014, and corrective actions were implemented and re-evaluated after 6 months. Sixteen 2-h sessions were held to perform FMEA in the blood transfusion process, including five steps: establishing the context, selecting team members, analysis of the processes, hazard analysis, and developing a risk reduction protocol for blood transfusion. Failure modes with the highest risk priority numbers (RPNs) were identified. The overall RPN scores ranged from 5 to 100 among which, four failure modes were associated with RPNs over 75. The data analysis indicated that failures with the highest RPNs were: labelling (RPN: 100), transfusion of blood or the component (RPN: 100), patient identification (RPN: 80) and sampling (RPN: 75). The results demonstrated that mis-transfusion of blood or blood component is the most important error, which can lead to serious morbidity or mortality. Provision of training to the personnel on blood transfusion, knowledge raising on hazards and appropriate preventative measures, as well as developing standard safety guidelines are essential, and must be implemented during all steps of blood and blood component transfusion.

Background and Aim: This study aims to compare the mortality rate, length of stay (LOS), and hospitalization cost in patients with and without healthcare‐associated infections (HCAIs).Methods: This prospective cohort study is conducted on 396 matched patients admitted to a tertiary teaching hospital with 800 beds in the southwest of Iran from July 2021 to January 2022. The cases were patients admitted during the study period who had, at minimum, one type of HCAI. For a comparison group, we considered all patients without HCAIs who hospitalized in the same ward and at the same time with the same age and gender in a ratio of one case to three controls. Descriptive analyses were done based on direct medical costs, LOS, and mortality rate in patients. The magnitude of the relationship between potential risk factors and HCAI was quantified using logistic regression.Results: The most common HCAI and microorganisms were urinary tract infection (UTI) and Escherichia coli, respectively. The mean LOS for infected patients was 20.3 (±16) days, compared to 8.7 (±8.6) days for noninfected patients (p value ≤ 0.05). Lengths of stay (odds ratio [OR] = 1.09; 95% CI = 1.06–1.19; p value = 0.000), ICU lengths of stay (OR = 1.08; 95% CI = 1.02–1.15; p value = 0.003), presence of central Catheter (OR = 0.127; 95% CI = 0.51–0.319; p value = 0.000), and urinary catheter (OR = 0.225; 95% CI = 0.122–0.415; p value = 0.000), mechanical ventilation (OR = 0.136; 95% CI = 0.57–0.325; p value = 0.000), receipt of immunosuppressors (OR = 1.99; 95% CI = 11.12–3.56; p value = 0.01), were Significantly associated with HCAI. Patients with infections had a more costly hospital stay than noninfected patients (mean diff: $2037.46 ([SD]: 482.25$) (p value = 0.000). The highest cost component was the cost of medication expenditure (mean: $1612.66 ([SD]: $2542.27).Conclusions: UTI was the most common HCAI in our study. An infection acquired during a hospital stay may be associated with higher hospitalization costs, prolonged hospitalization, and an increase in the rate of mortality. Longer lengths of stay, presence of central and urinary Catheters, receipt of immunosuppressors, use of mechanical ventilator were common risk factors for HCAI. This study reveals that the median reimbursement cost per hospitalization of patients with HCAIs was higher than patients without HCAIs. This highlights the necessity for implementation of HCAI prevention and control measures.

Objectives: This study was conducted to measure the effectiveness of interventions in decreasing the rates of pressure ulcer in a general hospital setting. Methods: Sixteen units in a general hospitals in Iran participated in this stepped-wedge, cluster randomized controlled trial during a 45-week study period. This trial has a one-sided crossover design from control to intervention. The units were randomly assigned fulfilling entry criteria. After the approval by the governing board of hospital, the manipulative intervention, in addition to usual care, was implemented on patients with a Braden criterion of 14 or less. The primary outcome was ulcer specification (grade and location of ulcer), and the secondary outcome was the length of hospital stay. Results: A total of 18,900 patients were admitted during the 45-week study period in the study units, of whom approximately 20% (3846 patients) were identified as high risk according to the items of Braden scale criteria during the admission assessment by nurses. The highest rate of PUs (80%) was in grade 2, and 16% of patients had grade 3 and 4 PUs. The ulcers of the skin overlying the sacrum and hip areas were the most common sites in the patients under study. The rates of PU in the control, training, and intervention phases were 5.49 (4.72–6.34), 5.68 (3.82–8.15), and 4.62 (3.87–5.47), respectively, per 1000 patient-days. Conclusions: The multifaceted intervention proposed by the present study has succeeded in reducing rate of pressure ulcer. Multifaceted programs based on training are appropriate ways to provide essential information to patients and their caregivers, which result in improvement of their participation in therapeutic process. We recommend hospitals to use these findings as a quality improvement plan for decreasing the rate of pressure ulcer.