OSHA addresses fire safety under the General Industry Standards (29CFR1910). Facilities under construction should consult the edition of the of the National Fire Protection Agency (NFPA) Life Safety Code adopted by your regulating agency for more detailed information.
As cases of COVID-19 and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) continue to persist and influenza season picks up, the CDC is urging hospitals to check the efficiency of their heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems.
Finding extra storage space in a hospital is always a challenge. But staff should be reminded that using stairwells, the ends of corridors, unused patient rooms or bathrooms, and empty offices for storage is not the answer.
Halloween is almost upon us, followed by a two-month holiday season starting with Thanksgiving and going through New Year’s. That means it’s time to review your holiday decorating policy, update it as needed, and educate new staff and veterans on what they can and cannot do.
At the urging of CMS, The Joint Commission has been providing surveyors with extra training on procedures related to investigating possible immediate jeopardy situations, as well as the use of open-ended questions during interviews with hospital staff.
Sterile processing departments have and will continue to receive a lot of scrutiny during surveys. That is also where hospitals can see a lot of high-risk deficiencies or even a ruling of immediate threat to health or safety.
Which would you rather do? Tell someone in the C-suite the hospital is facing a CMS immediate jeopardy ruling because the staff was so overwhelmed by paper drug prescriptions after a ransomware attack shut down computer records that a 3-year-old patient was given five times the prescribed dosage...
Ahead of winter, ensure you have the proper equipment for snow removal, especially if your facility is in an area of the country that sees a lot of the white stuff.