Recently in this space, we talked about CMS’ changing stance on the so-called ”30-minute rule.” To follow up, we thought it was time to take a look at the Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP) and its recently developed Acute Care Guidelines for Timely Administration of...
Briefings on Accreditation & Quality - Volume 23, Issue 4
During summer 2011, AHAP surveyed hospitals coast to coast to gauge how tracer methodology has evolved in recent years and how effective hospitals are finding this challenging, but often pivotal process. Seventy-two percent of respondents reported that they maintain formal tracer...
The Joint Commission requires healthcare facilities to train employees annually. Part of that training includes best practices for infection control (IC), but effective training requires infection preventionists (IP) to employ training methods based on evidence-based best practices that yield...
Years ago, when I wanted information on certain patient safety subjects, I might have gone to multiple sources—the Internet (of course), a colleague within my network, and maybe even a book.
Briefings on Accreditation & Quality - Volume 23, Issue 4
Fatigue has recently been recognized in the medical literature to increase the incidence of adverse events. Fatigue is a widely recognized patient safety issue. Nurses who worked over 12 hours per day or 60 hours per week were found to have made three times the number of medical...
Briefings on Accreditation & Quality - Volume 23, Issue 4
By now, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) is well known to the healthcare community. Hospital staff and physicians have long been practicing a strict standard of patient privacy.
The National Quality Forum (NQF) recently endorsed two outcomes-based measures from the American College of Surgeons (ACS) National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (NSQIP). The measures, surgical site infections (SSI) and urinary tract infections (UTI), were created in partnership with CMS...
The Joint Commission tracks and trends the most-cited standards to help healthcare organizations identify where the most challenging areas in the year’s surveys are occurring. The Joint Commission has released the latest list this week.
Has a Joint Commission surveyor ever called you by the wrong name? Did you accidentally fumble your words while presenting the findings of your mock tracer to leadership? Or maybe you answered a series of survey questions perfectly only to find out you had a huge piece of spinach in your...
