If staff at your healthcare organization have not yet encountered a human trafficking victim, it is “very likely they will,” says Elizabeth Even, MSN, RN, CEN, associate director of Clinical Standards Interpretation in the Division of Healthcare Improvement at The Joint...
As promised, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) has shut down its operation of the National Guidelines Clearinghouse (NGC). But on July 17, a day after the site went dark, ECRI Institute announced it will take over sponsorship of the clearinghouse sometime this fall.
With a new flu season right around the corner, now is the time for hospitals and other healthcare facilities to consider implementing a mandatory vaccination program for seasonal influenza. Some employees may initially object, but most experts agree that flu shots are a necessity for healthcare...
Infection preventionist Jessica Strauch shares an amusing anecdote to show how hand hygiene monitoring technology has improved the culture at Lutheran Medical Center in Colorado.
Picture one of Lutheran’s nurses standing in front of her kitchen sink at home. Dinner is hot...
This simple question has fueled a bitter fight ever since The Association of periOperative Registered Nurses (AORN) officially recommended that bouffant hats be worn in the OR by all surgical team members. Since then, there’s been a back-...
“At one point, we didn’t know if we were going to be able to save the hospital,” says the facilities director.
It’s been one year since Hurricane Harvey struck Houston, flooding the city and displacing tens of thousands of people. In one week, the Category 4 storm dropped 61 inches of...
Every time patients are misidentified, they are put at risk. Sometimes the harm is minor: an unnecessary test or being placed in the wrong room. And sometimes the consequences are dire: getting the wrong medicine or having the wrong operation performed. There are numerous points where a mix-up...
The Joint Commission is the latest healthcare heavy-hitter to call for better protection of healthcare workers, announcing the creation of Sentinel Event Alert 59, which addresses violence—physical and verbal—against healthcare workers. About 75% of workplace assaults occur in the healthcare and...
There’s one facet of accreditation that every patient safety provider ought to know about: Immediate Jeopardy (IJ).
The CMS State Operations Manual defines Immediate Jeopardy as “a situation in which the provider’s noncompliance with one or more requirements of participation has...
Last October the hospital was placed under immediate jeopardy following the death of a patient with dementia. After being admitted from a nursing home, the patient was given 10 times the maximum daily dose of a calcium channel blocker, causing a fatal overdose.
