Brookwood Medical Center (BWMC), a Tenet facility in Birmingham, AL, has an active, cohesive, and well-led education department. I believe employees are not fully aware of the extensive coordination and work that goes into keeping the nurses current and informed. With more than 800 nurses...
Briefings on Accreditation & Quality - Volume 21, Issue 10
Previously, BOJ spoke with Northwest Texas Healthcare System (NWTHS) in Amarillo about its Continuous Readiness Review (CRR) plan that was implemented for survey preparation. NWTHS recently had a chance to see how the new CRR plan worked—Joint Commission surveyors arrived in May, and the...
Briefings on Accreditation & Quality - Volume 21, Issue 9
Hospitals have multiple options when it comes time to undergo their PPR. The most extensive option, an on-site visit from The Joint Commission, is the most extensive, with the option to treat the PPR as a full-blown mock survey.
Briefings on Accreditation & Quality - Volume 21, Issue 9
If a procedure has been shifted from the physician to the nurse, can informed consent then be obtained by the nurse, or does that responsibility remain with the ordering physician? One facility, by using nurses for the insertion of peripherally inserted central catheters (PICC lines), challenged...
Briefings on Accreditation & Quality - Volume 21, Issue 9
Are you confident enough about your Joint Commission survey results to post them online? Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) in Boston did. Luckily, the survey turned out to be one of its best inspections ever, according to Kent B. Lewandrowski, MD, associate professor at Harvard Medical...
Briefings on Accreditation & Quality - Volume 21, Issue 9
The Joint Commission took a giant step forward in 2009 when it began to include the D icon next to the elements of performance (EP) that require documentation. This ended the long debate over whether a particular EP was required to have documentation support. However, the new icon fails to...
Briefings on Accreditation & Quality - Volume 21, Issue 8
Shelia Hull, RN, Joint Commission specialist at Pikeville (KY) Medical Center, was with the organization just a few months before the latest PPR was due to The Joint Commission. At that time, Hull and her supervisor discovered the organization had fallen out of compliance with its timing...
Briefings on Accreditation & Quality - Volume 21, Issue 8
In April 2008, Baystate Medical Center (BMC), a 653-bed teaching hospital in Springfield, MA, began implementation of its Bar Code Point of Care technology to positively impact medication administration in reducing errors.
Briefings on Accreditation & Quality - Volume 21, Issue 8
Systemic change does require visionary leadership. The board of trustees for our facility established a new three-year strategic plan based on our six indicators of success. One such indicator is Quality & Patient Safety, and the board determined that this indicator should include a vision “...
Briefings on Accreditation & Quality - Volume 21, Issue 8
Patients expect that every safeguard is in place when receiving healthcare services. The challenge is how to make this happen with the complexities of the system in which healthcare is delivered, as safe medication practices lie within the purview of multiple individuals. A 2006 study by the...