Despite sustained attention from hospital leaders, wait times in the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) ED were considerably longer than desired. Knowing that longer wait times means poor patient satisfaction and a higher risk of poor health outcomes, a team of resident physicians...
The Joint Commission requires healthcare facilities to train employees annually. Part of that training includes best practices for infection control (IC), but effective training requires infection preventionists (IP) to employ training methods based on evidence-based best practices that yield...
Briefings on Accreditation & Quality - Volume 23, Issue 4
Recently in this space, we talked about CMS’ changing stance on the so-called ”30-minute rule.” To follow up, we thought it was time to take a look at the Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP) and its recently developed Acute Care Guidelines for Timely Administration of...
Briefings on Accreditation & Quality - Volume 23, Issue 4
In 2009, The Joint Commission added Leadership standard LD.03.01.01, ”Leaders create and maintain a culture of safety and quality throughout the hospital,” to recognize that behavior that intimidates others and affects staff morale and turnover can also be damaging to patient care, and to...
Briefings on Accreditation & Quality - Volume 23, Issue 4
Fatigue has recently been recognized in the medical literature to increase the incidence of adverse events. Fatigue is a widely recognized patient safety issue. Nurses who worked over 12 hours per day or 60 hours per week were found to have made three times the number of medical...
Briefings on Accreditation & Quality - Volume 23, Issue 4
By now, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) is well known to the healthcare community. Hospital staff and physicians have long been practicing a strict standard of patient privacy.
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) has released its most recent Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture: 2012 User Comparative Database Report, which includes responses from 1,128 hospitals and 567,703 hospital staff, 76% of whom have direct interaction with patients...
The Joint Commission tracks and trends the most-cited standards to help healthcare organizations identify where the most challenging areas in the year’s surveys are occurring. The Joint Commission has released the latest list this week.
Has a Joint Commission surveyor ever called you by the wrong name? Did you accidentally fumble your words while presenting the findings of your mock tracer to leadership? Or maybe you answered a series of survey questions perfectly only to find out you had a huge piece of spinach in your...
