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Patient satisfaction is higher at hospitals that embrace technology, according to the 10th Annual Most Wired Survey and Benchmarking Study of Hospitals & Health Networks magazine, which is published by the American Hospital Association.
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The Joint Commission has strongly endorsed recently issued compendium infection prevention guidelines, announcing that the condensed, actionable recommendations may become required as accreditation standards by 2010.
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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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With the arrival of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid's no-pay rules, The Joint Commission's National Patient Safety Goals, and the ever-growing emphasis on quality improvement on patient care, prevention has become the name of the game.
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The Joint Commission requires a "thorough and credible" root cause analysis (RCA) for all Sentinel Events, but the process is sometimes less effective than hoped. Quality leaders at the Mayo Clinic came up with a novel solution: An oversight group to keep the process on track.
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Several states are re-energizing hospital board member education efforts with moves to certify and mandate educational requirements. Minnesota has started a voluntary certification program, and New Jersey has passed laws to require education.
