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The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) in Washington, DC, is accepting comments through May 31 on draft guidance clarifying the scope of medical liability coverage provided under the Federal Torts Claims Act (FTCA) to federally supported health centers and their employees during emergencies.
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The Joint Commission has proposed revisions to its leadership standard that reinforce its emphasis on effective communication and conflict resolution between and among what it calls the "key leadership components" of a hospital: The ED manager and other department managers, ED physicians, and other organized medical staff, and the governing body.
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" . . . Your left toe, looks like you're going to lose a little bit of the distal part," the trauma surgeon told the wounded patient. Then he paused, and rephrased: "The end of it, right at the toenails there; just a tip off the big toe and maybe the second toe in, just the tip."
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The Joint Commission is keenly aware that much still needs to be done to address ED overcrowding; in fact, the agency is considering a redesign of its survey process to more accurately measure ED performance in terms of overcrowding, according to a leading Joint Commission official.
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As funding barriers are slowly being chipped away in California and some other parts of the country, increasing numbers of institutions are forming stem cell research oversight committees (SCROs), or embryonic stem cell research oversight committees (ESCRO), which often have some overlapping responsibilities with IRBs.
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The archives of medical colleges and hospitals can be a rich source of information for historians interested in how health care has been delivered throughout our nation's history. Old case files, collections of physicians' personal papers, even old photographs were donated to archives so that others could learn from them decades later.
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In the absence of changes to HIPAA that would clarify the use of the privacy rule in historical medical archives, institutions, archivists and IRBs are left to sort through the complicated issues themselves.
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As stem cell research increases in California and elsewhere, IRBs and institutions are investing time and resources in establishing new oversight committees and writing new policies and procedures.
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Small IRB offices often do not have cross-trained or back-up staff in the event the IRB administrator is unexpectedly absent. So what happens when the people filling in cannot find the right forms or records or schedules?