Hospital Peer Review – February 1, 2008
February 1, 2008
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Report: Hospitals still struggling with many core measure requirements
There is much room for improvement for the vast majority of The Joint Commission's standardized national performance measures, according to data reported in Improving America's Hospitals: The Joint Commission's Annual Report on Quality and Safety 2007. A 90% compliance level was achieved for only four of 22 quality-related measures tracked during 2006. -
Physicians may not report their impaired colleagues
If a physician at your hospital observed that a colleague's substance abuse was putting patients in danger, would you expect that this information would be reported? -
Abbreviations: They're a definite threat to safety
During 2006 surveys, about 22% of organizations were found to be out of compliance with The Joint Commission's "do not use" list of abbreviations, a requirement of the National Patient Safety Goals since 2004 one of the most frequent non-compliance findings during surveys. Now a new study underscores that abbreviations pose a significant threat to patient safety. -
Publicly reported data are misleading, says study
Data were old, inconsistent, and incomplete. The same hospital was rated both best and worst for colon removal. -
Your hand hygiene data may soon go 'public'
If Consumer Union, the nonprofit publisher of Consumer Reports has its way, all hospitals will soon begin publishing their hand-washing compliance rates information that for most organizations, would not be flattering. -
The Quality - Cost Connection: Implementing changes, overcoming resistance
Every day it seems there is another process change that caregivers are asked to make. These changes may come as the result of an improvement project or root cause analysis or may be needed to meet accreditation standards.