What does it mean for a patient to have a rare disease? It means an average of five years before getting a correct diagnosis. It means consultations with over seven clinicians to reach an accurate diagnosis. It means a great deal of money, struggle, and physical and mental suffering. And at the...
Healthcare organizations are finding that an effective patient engagement strategy involves more than just opening a patient portal. A good platform not only gives consumers access to health system services and resources, but allows them to access those services on the device and at the time and...
Demographic characteristics, preexisting comorbidities, and vital sign and laboratory values at the time of hospitalization indicate which children with COVID-19 are at higher risk of severe illness, a recent research article shows.
In general with COVID-19, children experience milder...
One of the hardest parts of being a facilities manager can be keeping track of policies, procedures, logs, maintenance, equipment checks, and other documents that can mean the difference between a successful survey and a difficult plan of correction.
Understand who is supposed to be vaccinated and when, and establish a way to securely track and update your list of vaccinated staff as you anticipate surveyors from the...
The Joint Commission (TJC) surveyors have been true to their promise to begin surveying to the new COVID-19 vaccine requirement as soon as it became effective, and hospitals are already being scored for...
A few weeks ago, the good folks at CMS revised their take on how they were going to be surveying organizations relative to their handling of COVID-19 as a specific focus. Much as the adoption of emerging infectious diseases (EID) preparedness has resulted in a broadening of expectations, the...
Medication non-adherence, particularly among senior patients, is a costly problem facing the American healthcare system. This issue results in an estimated $100 billion–$290 billion in annual costs, according to studies reviewed in the Annals of Internal Medicine (AIM). Other...
The one thing healthcare isn’t short on is data. The industry has data coming in from all directions, but that’s not always a perfect scenario—data that is duplicated, low quality, or siloed can present barriers to better analysis. For healthcare systems to improve the way they want, data needs...
Healthcare Life Safety Compliance - Volume 25, Issue 2
Healthcare security officers are often in a thankless position. When nothing happens, that’s a good thing. But hardly any security officers get praised when nothing happens—even though that means they’re doing a great job.
It takes a special breed of security officer to spend their days...