Creating and sustaining a culture of safety has been a challenge for many healthcare organizations, but the objective value in having one can’t be overstated. Organizations like the Institute for Healthcare...
You can have clutter in your bedroom, your car, or your home closet, but you can’t have it in your laboratory. Hazardous chemicals can’t be stored above eye level, boxes can’t block exits, combustibles should be kept away from heat sources. Everything in a lab has a proper place, and lab workers...
No single healthcare facility will beat antimicrobial resistance (AMR) alone—nor will one industry, field, or even country. To prevent a world where AMR infections become the norm requires cooperation and collaboration between healthcare organizations both foreign and domestic, and engagement in...
Five medical organizations have teamed up to recommend best practices for hand hygiene in healthcare settings to protect patients and providers from infection. In particular, the recommendations focus on alcohol-based hand sanitizers and the importance of healthy skin and nails.
If you’ve ever ridden a roller coaster, you have some idea about what specimens go through when being transported via a pneumatic tube system (PTS). They, too, experience twists and turns, shaking, and vibrations on the journey.
The wrong label on the wrong container in the laboratory can be dangerous, even lethal. Given the wide variety of chemicals, biologicals, combustibles, and other materials the laboratory worker uses every day, ensuring everything is properly labeled with the right information is key to workplace...
Be sure you understand the requirements of your state or local fire authority having jurisdiction (AHJ) when evaluating the annual testing of your hospital’s medical gas program.
We can finally close the book, so to speak, on survey year 2022 and, in so doing, ponder the forces that come into play to increase the degree(s) of difficulty when it comes to compliance. And, in case you hadn’t guessed, the forces that come into play in the (drum roll) physical environment.
In the absence of embracing of a culture of safety throughout all levels of any organization, the folks who manage the physical environment would seem to be at something of a disadvantage.
How do you remove harms and dangers from your medical environment? Safety officials have studied this question for years and found many innovative solutions to various issues. But when deciding what action to take in removing a threat, the best tool to use is the hierarchy of controls: