The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced yesterday its Final Rule on Meaningful Use. The rule, intended to spell out exactly what will constitute healthcare parties’ appropriate use of electronic health records, has been anticipated since the proposed rule was released in...
True or false: Informed consent includes information on the risks and hazards of a particular treatment, the alternatives or options available to the patient, the risks and hazards of the alternatives or options, and any other information that will help the patient make a well-informed decision...
Until 2007, nurses at Riley Hospital for Children in Indianapolis relied on traditional shift change reporting methods to communicate patient care information from caregiver to caregiver. But when challenged by Riley’s leadership team to find ways to improve hospital documentation, the Clinical...
The concept of a just culture is relatively new to the healthcare industry and has become a critical and necessary component of any organization’s approach to improving patient safety. I have quickly learned the importance of just culture as I review patient safety events, attend root cause...
Briefings on Accreditation & Quality - Volume 21, Issue 8
In May, CMS released a set of updated clarifications to the often-challenging Anesthesia Services Conditions of Participation (CoP) Interpretive Guidelines.
These updates affected the following areas of Appendix A of the CMS State Operations Manual, section 482.52 a and b...
Briefings on Accreditation & Quality - Volume 21, Issue 8
Survey coordinators are challenged to help their organizations navigate accreditation requirements, assess their organization’s compliance, and coordinate survey visits. Today more than ever, with limited available resources, organizations must be sure that resources used to fix issues...
All you need to take advantage of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s (AHRQ) latest tool is hospital administrative or claims data. Called MONAHRQ (My Own Network, Powered by AHRQ), the free tool is a software program built to allow organizations to analyze data and/or create their...
Q. We are in the process of moving to an electronic system. How have other hospitals managed co-signatures on high-risk medications when nurses are scanning meds and patient IDs at the bedside? We would like to make it as easy as possible for the nurses.
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...
