In 1985 I was working in the corporate public relations office for a Fortune 100 company. It was an environment right out of the Dilbert comic strip-except that Dilbert had not been invented yet, so it wasn't all that funny. After a year, a grizzled veteran of several corporate tours pulled me...
Briefings on Accreditation & Quality - Volume 23, Issue 8
Hospitals should be aware of several important changes that were published in the May 16 Federal Register, effective July 16. CMS has made more than two dozen changes to the hospital Conditions of Participation (CoP), for which it will publish interpretive guidelines at a later date.
Despite already being below the national average on patient falls, Lallie Kemp Regional Medical Center's staff and leadership still felt falls were happening too often. The small but busy 25-bed critical access hospital pulled together to implement many tried-and-true methods, and in the process...
Briefings on Accreditation & Quality - Volume 23, Issue 8
In 2011, AHAP reported that accreditation professionals and survey coordinators saw a marginal uptick in salaries. After a dismal 2010, 6% fewer professionals received no increase between 2010 and 2011. How did accreditation professionals fare leading into 2012?
Briefings on Accreditation & Quality - Volume 23, Issue 8
There are certain requirements and regulatory factors that pose perpetual challenges for hospitals, familiar burdens that elicit nods of understanding and sympathy when organizations discuss the barriers to successfully keeping themselves in compliance. The recently relaxed "30-minute rule" from...
It was a simple mistake she's still ashamed she made, but luckily when Elizabeth Butler, BA, a fourth-year medical student at the University of Massachusetts, took the stitches out of the wrong woman, the patient was not severely injured. Although Butler has followed up with the...
Editor's note: Columnist Catherine Hinz, MHA, works as a leader in patient safety at HealthEast Care System in St. Paul, Minn. Previously, she worked at PatientSafe Solutions, Inc., and has completed a patient safety internship with the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality...
Preventing Central Line-Associated Bloodstream Infections: A Global Challenge, A Global Perspective, is the monograph The Joint Commission released to help healthcare organizations gain traction on the fight against healthcare-associated infections.
It was a simple mistake she's still ashamed she made, but luckily when Elizabeth Butler, BA, a fourth-year medical student at the University of Massachusetts, took the stitches out of the wrong woman, the patient was not severely injured. Although Butler has followed up with the...
