Expect ACHC surveyors to pay more attention to the Life Safety Code^® and to consider possibly more severe deficiencies after a review by CMS.

In the wake of Tropical Storm Hilary in California and Hurricane Idalia in the Gulf Coast, make sure that your patients and staff know how to stay safe after a major storm or flooding. The CDC has put out a list of post-hurricane safety tips to share with patients, including:

The Society of Interventional Radiology (SIR) predicts “significant” patient care “disruptions” will result from the EPA’s proposed regulations to slash ethylene oxide (EtO) emissions by 80%, according to Radiology Business.

Full-immersion virtual reality simulation decreased nursing students’ anxiety levels when communicating with anxious patients, says new research published in the September issue of Clinical Simulation in Nursing.

Among the many unique challenges to healthcare safety and security folks, the management of aggressive behavior and workplace violence probably stands a little more prominently in the hierarchy.

There are key differences between healthcare and aviation, says Jeffrey Salvon-Harman, MD, CPE, CPPS, vice president at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) and an aviation safety expert. But while not everything is transferrable, there are many lessons the aviation industry can teach healthcare organizations on error prevention and response, just culture, team building, and responding to near-miss events.   

Which would you rather do? Tell someone in the C-suite the hospital is facing a CMS immediate jeopardy ruling because the staff was so overwhelmed by paper drug prescriptions after a ransomware attack shut down computer records that a 3-year-old patient was given five times the prescribed dosage of a painkiller? Or explain what happened to the child’s mother? 

Sit down with pharmacy leadership and review section-by-section compliance with the revised U.S. Pharmacopeia (USP) standards on medication compounding because The Joint Commission (TJC), the Accreditation Commission for Healthcare (ACHC), and other accrediting organizations will assess compliance when the standards take effect November 1.

The lab technologist approached the lab safety officer (LSO) to ask what should be done with a collection of liquid wastes that were collected from the chemistry analyzers. The LSO had worked with multiple labs for years helping to determine how to dispose of their liquid chemical waste according to the regulations. He thought he was well aware of the hazardous chemical wastes coming from the labs, but he had no idea this chemistry analyzer waste existed. So, he dug a bit deeper.