The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced last week that it was cancelling the recall of 2,800 Custom Ultrasonics automated endoscope reprocessors (AER.) Custom Ultrasonics was one of the corporations embroiled in the duodenoscope scandal last year, after contaminated scopes caused scores...
Despite efforts to improve antimicrobial stewardship, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported this month that one out of three antibiotics are is needlessly prescribed.
In a highly-anticipated move expected to significantly affect the regulatory rules that hospitals and other healthcare facilities are held to, CMS has officially adopted the 2012 edition of the Life Safety Code® (LSC).
A new study conducted by John Hopkins researchers estimates that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is wrong about the third biggest cause of death in the nation. Researchers claim that 250,000 Americans die annually due to medical errors, nearly 100,000 more than those who die...
In 2011, The Joint Commission ruled that physicians and practitioners were forbidden from using text messaging to send patient care orders. Now the accreditor has reversed its ruling, and effective immediately hospital staff are allowed to send orders for care, treatment, and services via text...
In the May edition of The Joint Commission Perspectives, The Joint Commission announced its new Survey Analysis for Evaluating Risk (SAFER) matrix will be replacing the current scoring methodology, which includes Category A and Category C as well as elements of performance. The SAFER...
The Joint Commission released its 2015 Sentinel Event Statistics in March; based on 936 reported events, the accreditor found the most common sentinel events were unintended retention of a foreign body (116), wrong-site/wrong-side/wrong-procedure surgery (111), falls resulting...
