True or false: It is not necessary to use two patient identifiers when you are administering medications to a patient you have been taking care of and you know the patient’s medications.
I was always certain that my career in patient safety would be in the delivery sector, in health systems, hospitals, or clinics—settings in which clinicians and patients interact. Based on time spent as a frontline staff member and later as a leader in patient safety, I was sure that this was...
Nursing documentation is an oft-overcomplicated process. Although many Joint Commission standards require documentation, hospitals tend to write policies with which they cannot comply.
Briefings on Accreditation & Quality - Volume 21, Issue 9
A new report released by The Leapfrog Group shows that computer physician order entry (CPOE) systems can potentially miss half of routine medication orders and one-third of potentially fatal medication orders.
The report is based on a study of 214 hospitals that tested their CPOE...
After The Joint Commission released its National Patient Safety Goal concerning handoff communication in 2005, staff at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta (Children’s) spent plenty of time and effort convincing staff that the issue was an important one. As a result, the hospital standardized its...
Briefings on Accreditation & Quality - Volume 21, Issue 9
The Joint Commission took a giant step forward in 2009 when it began to include the D icon next to the elements of performance (EP) that require documentation. This ended the long debate over whether a particular EP was required to have documentation support. However, the new icon fails to...
