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Health care organizations are discovering, as many industries have already learned, that thriving even surviving in a competitive marketplace means concentrating their talent and experience on what they do best, and offloading noncore services and administrative functions to vendors who can do them better, faster, and cheaper.
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Aligning with the health care customer service model of the Studer Group whose Road Map to Excellence is guided by five pillars: service, quality, people, finance, and growth was a natural fit for Providence Health System, says Patricia Weygandt, manager of access services at Providence Milwaukie (OR), one of three system hospitals in the Portland area.
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Several key innovations contributed to the success of the Wipe Out Waiting (WOW) initiative in the emergency department (ED) of Paradise Valley Hospital in National City, CA, part of the Adventist Health System.
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On Jan. 13, 2004, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported a new suspect case of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in a 35-year-old man living in Guangdong province, China.
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Concerned about the emerging threat of pandemic influenza in Vietnam, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has dispatched a team to Hanoi to investigate an H5N1 avian flu outbreak that had claimed 12 lives as of Jan. 15, 2003.
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In a move that stunned infection control professionals, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) recently announced that it will require one of the most contentious provisions of its failed tuberculosis standard annual respirator fit-testing under its existing general respiratory protection standard.
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Amid increasing sensational press exposés and consumer advocates demanding release of hospital infection rates, comes this cold truth from a leading public health official: Health care-associated infections are fraught with so many variables that epidemiologists dont really know how many occur and how many can be prevented.
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New infection control standards by the Joint Commission describe a widely supported and collaborative program that represents one of a hospitals top priorities. Highlights of the 2005 standards, which are effective next Jan. 1, include this statement in the overview:
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Infection control professionals have the expertise to handle a rapidly expanding job definition, but must have the resources and staff to accomplish the new demands on the profession, a leading ICP recently said in Chicago at a conference held by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations.
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Diagnosing potentially deadly central venous catheterrelated bloodstream infections may be difficult, but the authors found that a lot of it may be a matter of timing.
