True or false: One of the frequently occuring errors has to do with caregivers selecting either the wrong patient or the wrong treatment, care, or service. This is behind the rationale prompting the NPSG requiring the use of two patient identifiers.
Medication reconciliation has received a facelift: revisions to the medication reconciliation National Patient Safety Goal (NPSG) have been approved for implementation as of July 1, 2011.
If you stay around long enough in this field, the issues just cycle back. This year in the annual Joint Commission Executive Briefings, the issue of standing orders once again was raised. MM.04.04.01, EP 1 defines standing orders as pre-written medication orders and specific instructions from...
Briefings on Accreditation & Quality - Volume 21, Issue 12
Did you notice a significant change in the Universal Protocol™ (UP) recently? No? We’re not surprised. Most of us missed the fact that The Joint Commission removed the UP FAQs from its website. We’ve been told that there is no intention to re-post the FAQs, relying instead on the UP rationale...
Briefings on Accreditation & Quality - Volume 21, Issue 12
When addressing anesthesia and sedation guidelines, the best advice is not to follow the letter of the law, but to look more accurately at the intent of the requirements, Bud Pate, REHS, vice president of content and development of The Greeley Company, a division of HCPro, Inc., in...
Patient safety staff members at VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System (VAPHS) knew they had a chance to increase their incident reporting, so they did something about it. And what they did didn’t require them to train hundreds of staff members in the large academic teaching hospital, but it still...