In a highly anticipated move expected to significantly affect the regulatory rules that hospitals and other healthcare facilities are held to, CMS has officially adopted the 2012 edition of the Life Safety Code® (LSC).
Briefings on Accreditation & Quality - Volume 27, Issue 6
As the struggle against opioid addiction rages on, The Joint Commission is facing criticism that its pain management standards are contributing to the problem.
Briefings on Accreditation & Quality - Volume 27, Issue 6
In one of the most impressive BoosterPaks released by The Joint Commission, the accrediting body explores the ever-evolving challenges surrounding high-level disinfection and sterilization.
Briefings on Accreditation & Quality - Volume 27, Issue 6
The hospital accreditation landscape has grown more crowded in the last several years, but one accreditor is working to make its recent acquisition of another as seamless as possible.
Briefings on Accreditation & Quality - Volume 27, Issue 6
Last year, the Joint Commission's infection control (IC) standard IC.02.02.01 had the dubious honor of being the second-most cited standard for hospitals, critical access hospitals, and ambulatory care facilities. The standard requires organizations to lower infection risks...
Briefings on Accreditation & Quality - Volume 27, Issue 5
Suicides were the third most common sentinel event of 2015, with 95 reported cases in 2015's Sentinel Event Statistics. The total number of patient suicides reported to The Joint Commission is now up to 1,184 since the start of the decade.
Briefings on Accreditation & Quality - Volume 27, Issue 5
The Joint Commission released its 2015 Sentinel Event Statistics in March; based on 936 reported events, the accreditor found the most common sentinel events were unintended retention of a foreign body (116), wrong-site/wrong-side/wrong-procedure surgery (111), falls resulting...
Briefings on Accreditation & Quality - Volume 27, Issue 5
Reusable medical devices carry a special risk of infection if they aren't properly reprocessed and sterilized. This fact was clarified in recent months when scores of infection outbreaks and dozens of deaths were linked to defective endoscopes. Many of these outbreaks involved...
Briefings on Accreditation & Quality - Volume 27, Issue 5
Veteran accreditation professionals don't get too excited with the biannual release of The Joint Commission's list of most-cited standards because they know what's coming: safety, safety, and more safety.