Citing “stakeholder concerns,” the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has once again postponed an update to its Overall Hospital Quality Star Ratings.
Briefings on Accreditation & Quality - Volume 29, Issue 9
In June, The Joint Commission Quick Safety Issue 42: Identifying Human Traf-ficking Victims was published. Elizabeth Even, MSN, RN, CEN, is the associate director of Clinical Standards Interpretation in the Division of Healthcare Improvement at The Joint Commission. She is...
Briefings on Accreditation & Quality - Volume 29, Issue 9
One of the fiercest fights in surgery is about ears. Do you cover them while conducting surgery? This simple question has fueled a bitter fight ever since The Association of periOperative Registered Nurses (AORN) officially recommended that bouffant hats be worn in the OR by all surgical team...
Briefings on Accreditation & Quality - Volume 29, Issue 8
Last October, the hospital was placed under immediate jeopardy following the death of a patient with dementia. After being admitted from a nursing home, the patient was given 10 times the maximum daily dose of a calcium channel blocker, causing a fatal overdose. DeKalb Medical officers self-...
Briefings on Accreditation & Quality - Volume 29, Issue 8
Rosemary Grant, BSN, RN, CPHQ, is the sepsis coordinator at Harborview. She says her facility chose to focus on sepsis detection because the condition is “prevalent, expensive, and deadly.”
“When we looked at data from our hospital and others, we saw that patients who develop sepsis in...
Briefings on Accreditation & Quality - Volume 29, Issue 8
This March, a team of experts working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published a study on antibiotic prescription habits in outpatient facilities. The study, published in the Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology journal, showed that there are seasonal trends...
Briefings on Accreditation & Quality - Volume 29, Issue 8
To keep themselves as closely aligned with CMS as possible, HFAP has updated their Acute Care Manual with a new requirement for Infection Control Standard 07.01.03—Reduce Risk of Legionella in Water Systems.
Briefings on Accreditation & Quality - Volume 29, Issue 7
Lutheran is among the healthcare organizations nationwide that in recent years decided to try hand hygiene monitoring technology in the hopes it could improve hand hygiene compliance—and in the process reduce the number of infections and avoid citations from accrediting organizations like The...
Briefings on Accreditation & Quality - Volume 29, Issue 7
Appropriate sharing of records for patients with substance abuse disorders should be easier under a second final rule issued January 3 by HHS and its Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). But in some cases, the new rule adds considerations that might mitigate the...
Briefings on Accreditation & Quality - Volume 29, Issue 7
Spurred by coordination problems identified after several recent mass shootings, National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) 3000, a Standard for an Active Shooter/Hostile Event Response (ASHER), is designed to help communities prepare for multiple casualties. It was released May 1.
