In March 2013, the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) began presenting the results of its random audits for HIPAA and Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act compliance. To date, the results have been discussed in two different presentations, which have been posted on the...
Briefings on Accreditation & Quality - Volume 24, Issue 9
A strong culture of patient safety has been and continues to be a critical component in reducing healthcare medical errors. To address this, some facilities are implementing "red rules"-a short set of easy-to-remember, unbreakable flagged practices, with disciplinary consequences if not followed...
The Joint Commission has approved new National Patient Safety Goal (NPSG) 06.01.01 on clinical alarm safety for hospitals and critical access hospitals.
As part of its ongoing mission to eliminate needlestick and sharps injuries in healthcare, Safe in Common has issued the "Top 10 Golden Rules of Safety," a set of guidelines to "unify the industry around efforts to fight needlestick injuries and raise awareness about effective...
Briefings on Accreditation & Quality - Volume 24, Issue 9
Every so often, the topic of steam sterilization comes up when discussing infection control issues. I recently came across a fantastic article in the Journal of the Association of periOperative Registered Nurses (AORN) discussing this very topic. The author, Paula Nania, MSN, RN, CNOR,...
Briefings on Accreditation & Quality - Volume 24, Issue 9
In July 2003, The Joint Commission proposed, as part of its Universal ProtocolTM procedures, a requirement for hospitals to perform a timeout immediately prior to a procedure. A year later, the requirement was in effect. Yet since then, even top-notch hospitals have dealt with...
California's latest round of penalties for hospital blunders that resulted in patient harm or death includes a wrong-site surgery, feeding errors, a retained surgical object, and a number of unnecessary "emergency" coronary interventions. Click the link above to read more.
Not to belabor or otherwise abuse the deceased equine, I wanted to share with you a potential solution for those of you who might be struggling with high humidity levels in your surgical procedure areas. Click the link above to read more.
