The Joint Commission’s time frame for evaluating licensed practitioners’ ability to provide care, treatment, and services has been updated from two years to three years, and is intended to better align with the standard practice of evaluating licensed practitioners.
In its final rule, CMS included behavioral health and low-risk maternal labor and delivery on the list of services allowed under the rural emergency hospital (REH) designation. However, some hospitals have questions about how those services will work with the requirement to have patients in...
Look for the Accreditation Commission for Health Care (ACHC) to continue collaborating with hospitals and other healthcare providers to improve patient safety through...
Ensure safeguards against sink splash in areas designated for clean medication preparation or face potential citations from surveyors, especially now that the problem has been called out in recently updated CDC core prevention and infection control practices.
Brad Keyes, CHSP, a Life Safety Code® expert and longtime contributor to Healthcare Safety Leader, Healthcare Life Safety Compliance and other HCPro...
Decorations around the hospital can bring joy to patients and staff. But they also can bring citations from CMS, accrediting organizations, or the fire marshal’s office. Ensure that the next holiday goes well by organizing decoration storage now.
While the COVID-19 public health emergency isn’t quite over, it’s becoming clear that surveys by The Joint Commission (TJC) have largely ramped back up to pre-pandemic levels.
Review your policies and procedures about spiking IV bags and block charting during rapid titration because the two largest accrediting organizations, The Joint Commission (TJC) and DNV Healthcare, have recently issued FAQs on the subjects.
Acute care hospitals in rural areas with 50 beds or less or facilities that qualify as critical access hospitals might want to consider converting to CMS’ newly outlined Rural Emergency Hospital provider type. There are advantages, say legal and healthcare experts, but not all hospitals may want...
In the last few months, surveyors have been repeatedly tagging the failure to properly clean glucometers, and the use of common household items as surgical instruments. Both of these citations could put hospitals at risk of losing accreditation.
