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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.
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The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) recently issued a special bulletin that warns of an increase in suspicious activity at hospitals.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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When you submit quality reports to hospital administrators, do you gloss over cost and financial issues or address them head-on? This could be a powerful tool to obtain additional resources for data analysis activities or corrective actions, says Judy Homa-Lowry, RN, MS, CPHQ, president of Homa-Lowry Healthcare Consulting based in Metamora, MI.
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As a part of their overall patient safety program, many health care organizations require that managers submit corrective action reports for every significant incident in their department.
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Have you ever included a patients personal information in statistical studies on specific diagnoses for JCAHO core measures and shared this with staff via e-mail? Do you ever e-mail colleagues about a patients outcome if that patient was seen at another institution?
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Its the moment of truth: After months of preparation, inservices, and mock patient tracers, you finally get the phone call: Surveyors from the Joint Commission have arrived at your hospital.
