Systemic change does require visionary leadership. The board of trustees for our facility established a new three-year strategic plan based on our six indicators of success. One such indicator is Quality & Patient Safety, and the board determined that this indicator should include a vision “...
Q. We are in the process of moving to an electronic system. How have other hospitals managed co-signatures on high-risk medications when nurses are scanning meds and patient IDs at the bedside? We would like to make it as easy as possible for the nurses.
Briefings on Accreditation & Quality - Volume 21, Issue 8
Patients expect that every safeguard is in place when receiving healthcare services. The challenge is how to make this happen with the complexities of the system in which healthcare is delivered, as safe medication practices lie within the purview of multiple individuals. A 2006 study by the...
Briefings on Accreditation & Quality - Volume 21, Issue 8
In May, CMS released a set of updated clarifications to the often-challenging Anesthesia Services Conditions of Participation (CoP) Interpretive Guidelines.
These updates affected the following areas of Appendix A of the CMS State Operations Manual, section 482.52 a and b...
Briefings on Accreditation & Quality - Volume 21, Issue 8
In April 2008, Baystate Medical Center (BMC), a 653-bed teaching hospital in Springfield, MA, began implementation of its Bar Code Point of Care technology to positively impact medication administration in reducing errors.
All you need to take advantage of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s (AHRQ) latest tool is hospital administrative or claims data. Called MONAHRQ (My Own Network, Powered by AHRQ), the free tool is a software program built to allow organizations to analyze data and/or create their...
Until 2007, nurses at Riley Hospital for Children in Indianapolis relied on traditional shift change reporting methods to communicate patient care information from caregiver to caregiver. But when challenged by Riley’s leadership team to find ways to improve hospital documentation, the Clinical...