Hospital Peer Review – June 1, 2005
June 1, 2005
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Terrorists posing as JCAHO surveyors? Act now to make your security airtight
Its 3 a.m., and a well-dressed man and woman approach a clerk at a nurses station, official-looking clipboards in hand. They claim to be surveyors from the Joint Commission and demand to be taken to the pharmacy to inspect medication storage areas. In reality, theyre impostors seeking unauthorized access with motives unknown. -
Feds warn of suspicious activity at hospitals
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) recently issued a special bulletin that warns of an increase in suspicious activity at hospitals. -
Have you implemented a rapid response team?
How do you think quick access to a team of clinicians with critical care expertise for patients in crisis would affect your hospitals mortality rates? The Cambridge, MA-based Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) recommends that organizations create rapid response teams (RRTs) to bring immediate help to the patients bedside or wherever it is needed. -
Learn to use a ‘What-If’ patient safety analysis
What-If analysis is a structured brainstorming method of determining what things can go wrong and judging the likelihood and consequences of those situations occurring. -
Protocol reduces mortality rates for hip fracture 80%
In 2000, quality professionals at Staten Island (NY) University Hospital reviewed the perioperative death of a 78-year-old woman undergoing hip fracture surgery. During a root-cause analysis of this sentinel event, a key area for improvement was identified: Medical staff lacked specific privileging for preoperative evaluations of high-risk patients. -
Patient Satisfaction Planner: Reduce chaos to see satisfaction scores rise
Patients and their families want to feel comfortable, informed, and respected when they come to your facility for surgery, and your ability to make them feel that way is reflected in your patient satisfaction scores. -
Patient Satisfaction Planner: Offer elderly reclining chairs, not gurneys
Would you like a simple way to reduce pain and increase satisfaction of elderly patients? Allow them to sit on reclining chairs instead of gurneys, suggests Scott Wilber, MD, FACEP, director of the emergency medicine research center at Summa Health System in Akron, OH. -
Patient Satisfaction Planner: Technology, planning key to successful programs
While the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) introduces new programs designed to address the care of chronically ill patients, home health agencies continue to find innovative ways to provide care to diabetic and congestive heart failure (CHF) patients two of the most common diagnoses identified as chronic illnesses.