True or false: It is not necessary to use two patient identifiers when you are administering medications to a patient you have been taking care of and you know the patient’s medications.
Prior to 2005, the catheterization lab at Mercy Des Moines (IA)–Mercy Heart Hospital (MDM) had a team responsible for manual inventory of 2,200 medical items per day. This task was not only time-consuming, but it also put patients at high risk of coming in contact with an expired medical item...
Nursing documentation is an oft-overcomplicated process. Although many Joint Commission standards require documentation, hospitals tend to write policies with which they cannot comply.
If a procedure has been shifted from the physician to the nurse, can informed consent then be obtained by the nurse, or does that responsibility remain with the ordering physician? One facility, by using nurses for the insertion of peripherally inserted central catheters (PICC lines), challenged...
Briefings on Accreditation & Quality - Volume 21, Issue 9
After The Joint Commission released its National Patient Safety Goal concerning handoff communication in 2005, staff at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta (Children’s) spent plenty of time and effort convincing staff that the issue was an important one. As a result, the hospital standardized its...
Briefings on Accreditation & Quality - Volume 21, Issue 9
Hospitals have multiple options when it comes time to undergo their PPR. The most extensive option, an on-site visit from The Joint Commission, is the most extensive, with the option to treat the PPR as a full-blown mock survey.