BOULDER, Colo., Feb. 29 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- The National Patient Safety Foundation's theme this year, "Patient Safety -- A Road Taken Together," stresses the importance of improving healthcare as a joint effort of hospitals, healthcare providers, patients, and communities.
Supporting National Patient Safety Awareness Week, March 2-8, 2008, medical device manufacturer Encision Inc. urges communities to actively partner with local hospitals to promote patient safety.
In recent months the announcement that Medicare, Aetna and Blue Cross may not pay for certain types of preventable hospital mistakes has served as a wake up call to the healthcare industry. Hospitals are proactively working to eliminate preventable complications that should never occur. An estimated 15 million incidents of medical harm occur in U.S. hospitals each year according to the Institute for Healthcare Improvement.
Based on the Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act of 2005 and recently proposed regulation from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, state lawmakers and hospitals are looking at establishing Patient Safety Organizations (PSOs) that would make it easier for hospitals to report errors and would-be mistakes without fear of retribution.
"Our Company's top priority is to work alongside hospitals, doctors, patients and professional associations to reduce the risk of medical harm during surgery and significantly improve patient safety," said Encision CEO Jack Serino.
Encision provides approximately 550 hospitals in 49 states with its patented monitoring technology to prevent rare but sometimes fatal complications related to laparoscopies -- routine minimally invasive surgery performed on over 4 million people in the U.S. every year for gall bladder removal, simple hernia repair, gynecological procedures, etc. It is possible during the common laparoscopic procedure for the electrosurgical device to shoot an arc of energy through failed insulation into a patient's internal organs causing an undetected stray energy burn that can lead to serious complications.
Encision Inc. designs, develops, manufactures and markets innovative surgical devices that allow surgeons to optimize technique and patient safety during a broad range of surgical procedures. Based in Boulder, Colorado, the Company pioneered the development of patented AEM(R) Laparoscopic Instruments to improve electrosurgery and reduce the chance for patient injury in minimally invasive surgery. To find out if your hospital uses Encision's AEM system to protect patients from stray energy burns during laparoscopies, please call Alan Schwarz at Encision, 800-998-0986, or visit http://www.encision.com/.
Contact: Jack Serino Chief Executive Officer Encision Inc. 303-444-2600
