The Elephant in the Room: Clinical Progression and Management of Elephant Ear Plant Toxicity in an Adult.

Elephant ear plants are popular ornamental plants renowned for their large foliage. These plants have been implicated in various inadvertent and deliberate ingestions. The leaves and roots of these plants contain raphides, which are needle-shaped calcium oxalate crystals.

Giant Colonic Diverticulum: A Rare Type of Diverticular Disease.

Giant colonic diverticulum (GCD) is a well-recognized but infrequently encountered disease in clinical practice. GCD is its own unique entity and differs from commonly seen diverticular disease in both size and management. Initial clinical presentation is typically associated with diverticulitis and symptoms such as abdominal pain, fever, nausea, vomiting, rectal bleeding, or even a palpable abdominal mass.

Optimizing Fail-Safe Use of Complex Medical Devices.

As part of its comprehensive journey toward high reliability, Memorial Hermann Health System has implemented multiple patient safety initiatives. An instance of actual patient harm due to staff unfamiliarity with a medical device triggered a project to ensure the competence of clinical staff in the operation of all approved new and updated medical devices. Medical devices are classified by level of risk to patients if caregivers are not reliably educated.

Using the Targeted Solutions Tool® to Improve Hand Hygiene Compliance Is Associated with Decreased Health Care-Associated Infections.

Background: In 2010 Memorial Hermann Health System (MHHS) implemented the Joint Commission Center for Transforming Healthcare's (the Center's) Web-based Targeted Solutions Tool ®(TST ®) for improving hand hygiene through-out its 12 hospitals after participating in the Center's first project on hand hygiene, pilot testing the TST, and achieving significant improvement for each pilot unit. Because hand hygiene is a key contributing factor in health care-associated infections (HAIs), this project was an important part of MHHS's strategy to eliminate HAIs.

Methods: MHHS implemented the TST for hand hygiene in 150 inpatient units in 12 hospitals and conducted a system wide process improvement project from October 2010 through December 2014.