After months of delays, CMS in July publicly released its hospital star ratings system on its Hospital Compare website. The public can now see the Hospital Compare overall rating for 3,662 hospitals across the U.S.
The release came after several key...
Briefings on Accreditation & Quality - Volume 27, Issue 9
The Joint Commission released its sentinel event statistics for the first half of 2016 in the August edition of Perspectives. The report relies on self-reported data and only shows a small portion of the never events that occur each year. The report, based on 349 reported events...
Briefings on Accreditation & Quality - Volume 27, Issue 8
Currently, 60% of U.S. hospitals don't have an antibiotic stewardship program (ASP) that meets all seven components of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) stewardship guidelines. But that is about to change with The Joint Commission announcement that as of...
Briefings on Accreditation & Quality - Volume 27, Issue 8
In June, the Helping Hospitals Improve Patient Care Act passed the U.S. House of Representatives, bringing several changes to CMS. One of the most noteworthy provisions of the act allows CMS to determine acceptable readmission rates and penalties by comparing facilities with...
Briefings on Accreditation & Quality - Volume 27, Issue 8
Several solutions have been proposed to solve the opioid epidemic. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released new and controversial opioid prescribing guidelines in March, with stricter parameters on when opioids can be given. One advocacy group recommends...
Briefings on Accreditation & Quality - Volume 27, Issue 8
After initially reversing a ban on texting medical orders, The Joint Commission and CMS have announced that they are working on additional guidance regarding texting policies. The two organizations hope to have a set of FAQs on creating an appropriate medical texting policy...
Briefings on Accreditation & Quality - Volume 27, Issue 8
Editor's note: Recently, the Healthcare Facilities Accreditation Program (HFAP) released lists of its most-cited deficiencies of 2012-2015 for acute care and critical access hospitals. The following is an edited Q&A with Karen Beem, RN, MS, standards...
Briefings on Accreditation & Quality - Volume 27, Issue 7
The Joint Commission's post-survey process just became a bit easier for visual learners. In May, The Joint Commission unveiled its new hospital scoring methodology called the Survey Analysis for Evaluating Risk (SAFER) matrix. The matrix is a 3 x 3 grid with the X-axis ranking the likelihood...
Briefings on Accreditation & Quality - Volume 27, Issue 7
Editor's note: The following is an edited excerpt from an interview with Sheri Campion, BSN, RN, and Andrew L. Masica, MD, MSCI, of Baylor Scott & White Health (BSWH) in Dallas. Campion is a senior healthcare improvement consultant at BSWH, while Masica is the chief...
Briefings on Accreditation & Quality - Volume 27, Issue 7
Editor's note: The following is an edited excerpt from a CMS webcast explaining how it developed "five-star" hospital ratings for Hospital Compare (www.medicare.gov/hospitalcompare) as well as upcoming changes to...
