Hospital Peer Review 2003-04-01

Work with infection control staff to study and prevent sentinel events

With the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations recent emphasis on investigating nosocomial infections as sentinel events, now is the time to start planning how you will coordinate a root-cause analysis with your organizations infection control professionals.

RCA of transplant case reveals lack of redundancy

A root-cause analysis points to a lack of redundancy as the critical failure that allowed organs to be transplanted into a patient with the wrong blood type, according to information from Duke University in Durham, NC, the site of a recent notorious sentinel event.

Hospital achieves 90% compliance with pathways

Clinical pathways often are hailed as a premier quality improvement tool, but they also are seen as pie-in-the-sky solutions because they dont do any good if clinicians dont actually use them after all the fanfare of introducing them.

Reader Question: Spiritual assessment required in all settings

Question: Does the Joint Commissions standard on spiritual assessment apply only to behavioral health or to all health care settings? What are we expected to do in making this spiritual assessment?

Standards set for HIPAA privacy accreditation

URAC in Washington, DC, recently released a set of Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) Privacy Accreditation standards for public comment. When completed later this year, the new program is intended to help health care organizations display a commitment to fair information practices, and to demonstrate that they have taken the necessary steps to protect health information privacy.

HHS adopts final security standards under HIPAA

Tommy G. Thompson, secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), recently announced the adoption of final security standards for protecting individually identifiable health information when it is maintained or transmitted electronically.

The Quality-Cost Connection (Part 1 of 2): Using customer concerns to improve quality

Service quality is a high priority for most health care organizations. Unfortunately, failures in service and, therefore, concerns are inevitable due to the number of variables and perceptions involved in health care delivery. Feedback and learning from concerns is a key ingredient for achieving service excellence.

Discharge Planning Advisor: Hospital’s award-winning plan for prescription drugs

A social work professional at a 100-bed hospital in Indiana is getting free medications for patients who cant afford them with a program she says could be a model for health care organizations across the country.

Discharge Planning Advisor: Redirect indigent funds for prescription drugs

W.A. Foote Memorial Hospital in Jackson, MI, has dramatically increased the bang for its prescription drug buck by forming a medication assistance program (MAP) in conjunction with several community agencies.

Discharge Planning Advisor: Partnership gets drugs for needy patients

Obtaining prescription drugs for patients who cant afford them has been a problem for Athens (GA) Regional Medical Center for the 18 years that Beverly A. Baker, CRC, CCM, has been with the hospital, she says. The situation changed dramatically for the better about a year and a half ago.

Patient Safety Alert Supplement

Hospital Peer Review – April 1, 2003

April 1, 2003