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In issuing its 2009 safe practices, the National Quality Forum (NFQ) recommends more pharmacist involvement. Safe Practice 18: Pharmacist Leadership Structures and Systems reads: Pharmacy leaders should have an active role on the administrative leadership team that reflects their authority and accountability for medication management systems performance across the organization.
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The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) just added new information to its Hospital Compare site death rates and readmission rates relating to heart attack, heart failure, and pneumonia.
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If clean hands can save lives, why aren't more health care workers complying with hand hygiene guidelines? The answer isn't singular in nature and neither are the methods suggested for improvement, but one thing is certain: Compliance is lacking. In response, The Joint Commission recently published a 262-page monograph, "Measuring hand hygiene adherence: Overcoming the challenges," to identify best practices for measuring adherence.
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In the photograph, a young boy in a hospital bed looks unflinchingly at you, one hand on his chest. And in big type it reads, "You could kill me with your bare hands." Novant Health's message to its staff in 2005 was clear. Hand hygiene compliance is a matter of life and death.
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Do you understand the new Joint Commission scoring methodology? According to Susan Mellott, PhD, RN, CPHQ, FNAHQ, CEO/health care consultant, Mellott & Associates in Houston, the changes and their impact are still unclear to many quality professionals, and there is a lot of information still to be gleaned to prepare your facility.
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"Nobody really looks at the operating room when they're talking about ED overcrowding. But that elective schedule is what drives the peaks and valleys on the inpatient side," says Susan Madden, MS, Press Ganey's VP for analytics.
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It's when they looked back at what they had accomplished that they realized they really had been organized.
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Venous thromboembolism (VTE) has hit center stage as a major and preventable cause of death in hospitals and now a core measure for The Joint Commission.
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Effective July 1, accredited hospitals will be scored on both the 2009 accreditation standards and the additional requirements released by The Joint Commission in March to bring the accrediting body more in line with CMS Conditions of Participation (CoPs). But that's not the only thing that will be different in the scoring and surveying process.
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Quality care doesn't end when a patient leaves the hospital. And with rehospitalization rates on the top of the list of concerns for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, managing the care of the patient after he or she is discharged from your facility is not a nicety, it's a necessity.
