Q: During our recent survey, the surveyor cited three instances where the preprocedure H&P was missing elements based on the medical staff rule requirements. How can I clarify this?
The Joint Commission Center for Transforming Healthcare released a new Hand-off Communications Targeted Solutions Tool™ (TST) to help health care organizations with the process of passing patient information between caregivers to prevent miscommunication-related errors.
You can have the best policies and procedures in the world, but if communication and understanding by those who need to know is not available, the intent of the patient rights chapter will never come to fruition. The chapter captain assigned to patients’ rights, with guidance from the...
In today's world of healthcare, hospitals have to measure nearly everything related to quality and patient safety. There are lots of metrics, many tied to reimbursement. Some are very specific, and some are reported to multiple outside agencies. There is no doubt that hospitals...
High-touch surface areas remain a constant concern for infection preventionists (IP). Regular and terminal cleaning can only be done so many times a day, and surfaces like bed rails, doorknobs, and call buttons are constantly harboring infectious organisms.
In today's world of healthcare, hospitals have to measure nearly everything related to quality and patient safety. There are lots of metrics, many tied to reimbursement. Some are very specific, and some are reported to multiple outside agencies. There is no doubt that hospitals...
The best way to mass vaccinate the general public during flu season is to make flu shots as accessible as possible, and access doesn't get any easier then rolling down your window and rolling up your sleeve.
Many hospitals across the nation are already working with health IT, including electronic health records (EHR) and bar code scanning-especially as CMS' Medicare and Medicaid EHR incentive programs (commonly referred to as "meaningful use") promise to provide incentive payments...
