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Serious adverse events can result when unauthorized family members, caregivers, or clinicians administer patient-controlled analgesia (PCA) for the patient by proxy, warns a Sentinel Event Alert issued by the JCAHO.
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Health care organizations everywhere are using focus groups of consumers to critique services, rate educational materials, offer feedback on patient safety, or register kudos and gripes about the quality of patient care.
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To comply with the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations new National Patient Safety Goal to reduce the risk of patient harm resulting from falls, you must assess and periodically reassess each patients risk of falling including the potential risk associated with the patients medication regimen and take action to address any identified risks.
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If youre expecting that the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations proposed revisions to medication management standards will add to your workload, youre probably right.
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One thing quality professionals can agree on is that in health care today, every dollar counts. Thats why pay-for-performance programs potentially can have a dramatic impact on your organization by getting the attention of hospital administrators and opening the floodgates to needed quality resources.
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Its a balancing act for most organizations weighing the need for error disclosure, which may lead to system changes that prevent harm to future patients, against the threat of lawsuits.
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An unusual collaboration among three competing California hospitals is providing much-needed post-discharge care for homeless people. It is linking those individuals to ongoing medical benefits while freeing up hospital beds for more acute patients.
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One of the biggest discharge planning challenges at Sutter General Hospital in Sacramento, CA, involves patients who need dialysis after they come into the hospital, says Kate Tenney, RN, manager of case management.
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Increased public scrutiny of hospital performance on surgical infection prevention measures will continue, quality leaders predict. From the point of view of quality managers, this is a wonderful thing, says Terry Hill, MD, medical director for quality improvement at San Francisco-based Lumetra.
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During an April 2005 survey at Fort Sanders Sevier Medical Center in Sevierville, TN, JCAHO surveyors used the Survey Activity Guide (SAG) as their own guide for every system tracer they did, reports Nancy Van Voorhis, RN, CPHQ, manager of quality and clinical care. As we sat down at the system tracer sessions, the surveyors would pull out their SAG section on that system tracer. So my best advice is to use the Survey Activity Guide for your prep tool. We did, and we did fine.
