According to national statistics, anywhere from 25% to 40% of patients in acute care settings have either a primary or secondary behavioral health diagnosis. Whether that diagnosis is a substance abuse issue or another acute or chronic psychiatric condition, steps can-and should-be taken to...
Briefings on Accreditation & Quality - Volume 24, Issue 7
Many hospitals find complying with regulatory and accreditation standards to be a challenge-knowing how to address deficiencies and ensure that the entire organization is prepared to do so is not something one learns in school. As a result, even an excellent hospital can find its well-being in...
Briefings on Accreditation & Quality - Volume 24, Issue 7
Spend a few moments in any hospital and it is likely you'll encounter them-the endless beeps, sirens, alarms, and call tones that staff face every shift. We as a healthcare community have come to recognize that alarm fatigue is a real danger-everyone knows a story, either in passing or from...
Briefings on Accreditation & Quality - Volume 24, Issue 7
The Association for Healthcare Accreditation Professionals (AHAP), in its most recent poll of members, targeted the concept of patient flow in the emergency department (ED). Rather than follow the organization's usual benchmarking format, the poll instead used an interview-style approach,...
Briefings on Accreditation & Quality - Volume 24, Issue 6
In the pages of BOJ, we often explore the results of Joint Commission surveys, looking at RFIs, identifying specific target standards, and more. But discussion of this information is often tempered by a nervousness that somehow talking over the survey results might be unwelcome either by the...
Briefings on Accreditation & Quality - Volume 24, Issue 6
In a memorandum published to state survey agency directors March 15, CMS resoundingly announced its support of the use of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) Common Formats to improve hospital adverse event tracking so that hospitals can better meet the CMS Quality Assessment...
Briefings on Accreditation & Quality - Volume 24, Issue 6
Each fiscal year, CMS releases a financial report, and included in this tome-like document is an interesting bit of information for hospitals that use accrediting organizations (AO)-CMS provides a side-by-side comparison of what each organization does and how they stack up to each other in terms...
Briefings on Accreditation & Quality - Volume 24, Issue 5
There has been a growing sense of urgency around CMS surveys among accreditation professionals in recent years. The anxiety once reserved for Joint Commission visits has drifted much more into anticipation of a visit from CMS surveyors instead. Industry experts have said that CMS itself has been...
Briefings on Accreditation & Quality - Volume 24, Issue 5
We hear it time and time again in healthcare: It's all about communication. This is particularly important and complex in the area of patient rights. Misunderstandings abound on both sides of healthcare equation-patients may not know or understand their rights, while staff may not be sure how to...
Briefings on Accreditation & Quality - Volume 24, Issue 5
An article by a nurse that appeared recently in The New York Times has brought about a surge of discussion, sometimes revealing, sometimes aggressive, about the relationships and professional interactions between caregivers in hospitals.
