Despite efforts to improve antimicrobial stewardship, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported this month that one out of three antibiotics are is needlessly prescribed.
In a highly-anticipated move expected to significantly affect the regulatory rules that hospitals and other healthcare facilities are held to, CMS has officially adopted the 2012 edition of the Life Safety Code® (LSC).
A new study conducted by John Hopkins researchers estimates that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is wrong about the third biggest cause of death in the nation. Researchers claim that 250,000 Americans die annually due to medical errors, nearly 100,000 more than those who die...
In 2011, The Joint Commission ruled that physicians and practitioners were forbidden from using text messaging to send patient care orders. Now the accreditor has reversed its ruling, and effective immediately hospital staff are allowed to send orders for care, treatment, and services via text...
In the May edition of The Joint Commission Perspectives, The Joint Commission announced its new Survey Analysis for Evaluating Risk (SAFER) matrix will be replacing the current scoring methodology, which includes Category A and Category C as well as elements of performance. The SAFER...
Suicides were the third most common sentinel event of 2015, with 95 reported cases in 2015's Sentinel Event Statistics. The total number of patient suicides reported to The Joint Commission is now up to 1,184 since the start of the decade.
Over the last decade, suicide rates in the United States have been creeping steadily skyward. In some states, the suicide rate is nearly twice the national average.
A recent report from a federal watchdog agency offers new insight into the barriers hospitals still face when it comes to addressing patient safety concerns, offering a concise distillation of the key gaps that remain in ongoing efforts to prevent patient harm.
