The Joint Commission took a giant step forward in 2009 when it began to include the D icon next to the elements of performance (EP) that require documentation. This ended the long debate over whether a particular EP was required to have documentation support. However, the new icon fails to...
I was always certain that my career in patient safety would be in the delivery sector, in health systems, hospitals, or clinics—settings in which clinicians and patients interact. Based on time spent as a frontline staff member and later as a leader in patient safety, I was sure that this was...
Briefings on Accreditation & Quality - Volume 21, Issue 9
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
Are you confident enough about your Joint Commission survey results to post them online? Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) in Boston did. Luckily, the survey turned out to be one of its best inspections ever, according to Kent B. Lewandrowski, MD, associate professor at Harvard Medical...
The Joint Commission Center for Transforming Healthcare has announced it will release a tool specifically targeting one of healthcare’s most persistent challenges–hand hygiene–in September.
Thank you to all members who participated in our benchmark survey on restraints use. Results will be available on the AHAP website later this week, at www.accreditationprofessional.org.
The Joint Commission announced this week its most challenging requirements list for the first half of 2010. The list for hospitals is dominated, as it has in the past, with standards dealing with fire safety requirements, though the most challenging requirement deals with medical records–another...
