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Early intensive anti-diabetic treatment may improve â-cell function; How long should 'clear sailing' certificate last after colonoscopy?; The Swedish Diabetes CVD Risk Score; Ethnic disparity in colon polyps detected during routine screening; Cannabis withdrawal: Under-recognized; Effect of PUFAs on chronic heart failure
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Is it the end of an era for The Joint Commission? Following on the heels of Congress' move to require the organization to reapply for deeming authority for the first time, DNV Healthcare on Sept. 26 was granted deeming authority from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).
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Anticoagulants, or blood thinners, have taken the mainstream media by storm with salacious tales of medical errors and tragic stories of babies' deaths.
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While The Joint Commission is asking health care facilities to use computerized physician order entry and bar coding technology as an adjunct to arm themselves in managing high-risk medications including anticoagulants, a recent study highlights the errors implicit in this kind of information technology support.
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In September, the American Hospital Association issued a quality advisory on implementing standardized colors for patient alert wristbands, citing a near miss when a nurse mistakenly placed a wrong-colored bracelet on a patient, confusing the color codes of the two hospitals for which she worked.
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A story that ran in the Sept. 12 issue of the Philadelphia Inquirer "Hospitals' mistakes are going unreported" might have shocked readers with its description of unreported errors in New Jersey and Pennsylvania despite the states' mandatory reporting requirements.
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Just as in certain consumer-driven businesses, the mantra was always "the customer is always right," in health care, the mantra at least the one attributed to physician attitudes and principles historically has been "the patients' needs come first."
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In addition to physician ethics, the pay-for-performance concept also has been instituted by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid (CMS) related to its statement that its policy will be to no longer pay for any on a list of so-called "never" events that occur at hospitals. The policy became effective Oct. 1.
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More and more questionable ties between physicians and drug companies are being uncovered in an investigation into such financial relationships conducted by Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA).
