Almost two-thirds of the hospitals surveyed in 2017 were found noncompliant in at least one—and possibly many more—of the top 10 most challenging standards for hospitals.
Briefings on Accreditation & Quality - Volume 29, Issue 6
The good news is that patient falls are largely preventable. Doing so can save patients undue pain and save a hospital around $1 million a year. The bad news: There are still between 700,000 and 1 million patient falls each year. Of that number, 30%–35% of falls lead to injuries such as internal...
Briefings on Accreditation & Quality - Volume 29, Issue 6
With the renewed focus on ligature and self-harm, facilities need to undergo a complete reassessment of the physical environment where patients with behavioral or mental health problems are cared for. That goes especially for emergency departments. Annually, 460,000 emergency department visits...
Briefings on Accreditation & Quality - Volume 29, Issue 6
The Healthcare Facilities Accreditation Program—also commonly known as HFAP—will be keeping its name. The longtime accrediting organization had originally planned to take the name of the Accreditation Association for Hospitals/Health Systems (AAHHS), which acquired HFAP in 2015 from the...
There’s a case where a World War II POW committed suicide by hitting himself in the head with an empty metal canteen after days without water. While that happened in the hold of a Japanese prison boat, not a hospital, it highlights how resourceful a suicidal person can be when it comes to...
With the end of the opioid/painkiller crisis nowhere in sight, it’s up to providers and facilities to lead the charge.
More than three dozen bills addressing various concerns about the opioid epidemic are before committees in the Senate and House. The Centers for Disease Control and...
Sepsis mortality rates increase quickly when left untreated, even if it’s only for a few hours. The difficulty facing providers is that there isn’t a simple test for sepsis. Instead, they have to watch for patterns and symptoms that could indicate sepsis. As a result, it’s common to have...
This March, a team of experts working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published a study on antibiotic prescription habits in outpatient facilities. The study, which appeared in the Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology journal, showed that there are...
The three steps an Oklahoma hospital used to bring its C. diff rate to zero
Using a multifaceted approach, Stillwater (Oklahoma) Medical Center was able to beat one of the most frequently reported healthcare-associated infections. The 177-bed facility hasn’t seen a single hospital-...
Boston Children’s Hospital was threatened with termination from Medicare last year after three patients suffered from serious medication errors. An inspection report revealed that one of the patients waited 14 hours for an antibiotic and later died, while two others suffered overdoses of a...
