Incidents Happen: Are You Prepared?

A lab webcast

April 27, 2022 | 12:00 p.m. ET

Overview

Patient harm is the 14th leading cause of morbidity and mortality in the world. In high income countries, as many as 1 in 10 patients are harmed while receiving care and it is estimated that up to 50% of adverse events are preventable. When these incidents do occur, it is critical that they are investigated to determine causes and prevent recurrence; but do you have the best practices in place to reach the true cause?

For more than 50 years, ECRI has been a leader in investigating healthcare accidents. Join us for this live lab webcast as experts share key lessons learned from ECRI’s 2000+ conducted investigations, and describe how you can be prepared to respond to a health technology related incident at your facility.

Learning objectives

During this session, we'll discuss:

  • The types of devices most likely to be subject of investigation
  • The difference between an accident and forensic investigation
  • How incidents are investigated by ECRI
  • A new tool available to help you be prepared for incidents

Agenda & Speakers

Jason Launders

Director of Operations, Device Evaluation, ECRI
Jason Launders has been at ECRI since 1998 and is currently the Director of Operations for the Device Evaluation group. Jason’s primary responsibility is managing ECRI’s laboratory based evaluations of medical technologies. Jason has an MSc in Medical Physics and spent his earlier time at ECRI evaluating a wide range of diagnostic imaging technology, such as: CT, MRI, PACS, and Digital Radiography. Today, he is responsible for developing the content of evaluations to ensure they meet the needs of our members.

Chris Schabowsky, PhD, CCE

Director, Accident and Forensic Investigation, ECRI
Dr. Schabowsky is the Director of ECRI’s Accident and Forensic Investigation Services. He regularly conducts incident investigations of adverse events and injuries involving healthcare technologies and surgical procedures. Recent cases involve ventilators, harmonic scalpels, defibrillators, operating tables, and infusion pumps. He lectures nationally on patient safety topics such as surgical fire prevention and extinguishment. He is a certified clinical engineer and serves on the US Board of Examiners for Certified Clinical Engineering.

Bruce Hansel, PhD, CCE

Chief Scientist, Accident and Forensic Investigation, ECRI
During the last four decades, Dr. Hansel has performed nearly 1,000 medical incident investigations involving many types of medical technologies and procedures. He has provided technical expert opinion and testimony regarding anesthesia, ventilation, infusion, surgical instruments, monitors, catheters, implants, surgical burns, gas embolism, and more.

Barbara Malanga, BSEE

Investigator and Program Manager, Accident and Forensic Investigation, ECRI
Ms. Malanga is a biomedical engineer with ten years’ experience as a Health Devices Project Officer evaluating and investigating non-invasive cardiology equipment’s design and use for ECRI, followed by 15 years consulting for the defibrillator industry. In her current role as Program Manager and Investigator for ECRI’s Accident and Forensic Investigation Services, Ms. Malanga fields questions from potential customers, writes proposals, tracks workflow, reviews reports, supports marketing and budgeting efforts, and applies her technical knowledge to the investigation of incidents with medical devices in the hospital setting.