In looking back at some of the events that have buffeted healthcare (yes, I’m talking to you, pandemic!), I’m trying to wrap my head around how a healthcare organization would have been able to stay open and operational without having the essential elements of a COOP.
To frame the conversation, the state of New Jersey is in the process of implementing one of the (if not the) most comprehensive regulatory requirements relative to the management of water as a function of waterborne illnesses. Certainly, the folks in healthcare are already managing these risks,...
Anyone who’s followed this Space for any length of time knows I am rather fond of the twists and turns of language, but only when those twists and turns reflect a fair degree of precision. Those twists and turns come to a screeching halt in the face of words that are treated as synonyms, and the...
This is rather more of an aspirational post (i.e., a rant) this week as the evidence from the field shows no sign that the unsettling depths of physical environment findings are likely to decrease any time soon. At risk of sounding like an elderly neighbor telling the kids to stay off their lawn...
You have to know where you shut them off—make sure you label those shutoff valves!
That’s one of the pearls of wisdom dispensed during the most recent Executive Briefings by our friends in Chicago. It appears that there’s been a run on unlabeled shutoff valves during this year’s surveys,...
I apologize for not pushing this out a few weeks earlier than now—I’m writing this a few days after Daylight Savings Time, so my brain is wonky and erasing my thoughts like an Etch A Sketch (you all know about that, yes? If not, this will...
I will admit that I’ve been sitting on this one for a couple of months as I have no interest in sensationalizing any acts of violence, even inadvertently. But it also seems like not too much time passes before firearm violence (yet again) makes front page news, so I guess this topic may be more...
I’ve had an interesting couple of weeks scrambling up and down ladders while engaged in a focused above-the-ceiling life safety compliance assessment. The experience gave me time to think about one of the basic tenets (at least, for me) of managing the physical environment, which I will...
This week brings us something of a mixed bag, but I think the two articles speak to the heart of how our management of the healthcare physical environment informs everything that goes on around and in it. I have consistently maintained (small pun intended) that pretty much everything in...
For those of you keeping tabs on the regulatory landscape, you might already know that the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI) has initiated a new standard—ST108—that defines levels of water quality suitable for various stages of medical device processing, with the...
