Two decades after the dawn of the patient safety movement in healthcare with the publication of “To Err Is Human: Building a Safer Health System,” medical errors remain a vexing challenge at healthcare settings. Encouraging staff to participate in safety event reporting is a primary strategy in fixing systemic problems that jeopardize patient safety.

Inpatient behavioral health facilities seeking accreditation to participate in Medicare and Medicaid now have a second choice after CMS approved DNV-GL Healthcare’s first application for recognition as a national accrediting organization (AO) for psychiatric hospitals.

Dust off any outstanding plans of correction (POC) for CMS and intensify survey readiness prep because you may be getting surveyors on-site soon.

Each year, 2.5 million patients suffer from pressure ulcers and injuries, with 60,000 dying from complications. To put that into some context, in 2018 there were fewer suicide attempts (1.4 million) and deaths (48,000) than there were pressure ulcer cases and deaths.

Klaus Nether, DHS, CSSMBB, is the executive director of high reliability product delivery at the Joint Commission Center for Transforming Healthcare, which has made preventing hospital-acquired pressure ulcers and injuries (HAPU/I) a priority for the past two years. He answered questions from Patient Safety Monitor Journal via email about the Center’s efforts to prevent HAPU/I.