Since this is the season for evergreens …

Holiday decorations can be infectious. And not in a good way, if they are in your hospital corridors and waiting areas.

CIHQ has been approved by CMS as a hospital accrediting organization through January 1, 2028.

The twin surges in influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) across the United States are causing more than capacity issues for hospitals. Patients with RSV are often susceptible to bacterial infections that are, for pediatric patients, typically treated with amoxicillin. Yet in late October 2022, the FDA confirmed a shortage of amoxicillin oral powder for suspension due to increased demand.

Since this is the season for evergreens, let’s close out 2022 with a little eyewash station madness.

As I write this, it is the anniversary of the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut and I think you could make the case that the need for hospitals and other healthcare facilities to prioritize protections from active shooters has not diminished over time.

At HCPro, our goal is to provide you with the most up-to-date information on changes that affect your organization. After reviewing our product line, we have decided to discontinue Healthcare Life Safety Compliance (HLSC) and provide you with a more robust and user-friendly experience. Starting in January, we are upgrading your experience to the Accreditation & Quality Compliance Center ’s basic access level while we stop producing weekly content for HLSC.

With a new year on the horizon, it’s always good to know the latest trends in fire and life safety compliance.

Ernest Allen, ARM, CSP, CPHRM, CHFM, knows the life safety arena intimately. We revisited some of the most pressing topics with him and discussed how Life Safety Code® (LSC) officials can prepare for 2023.

Every healthcare facility staff member should be familiar with the acronym RACE, used to provide guidelines when responding to a fire emergency. Today we will discuss one of the often overlooked and frequently cited life safety deficiencies, which is the letter C in the RACE acronym: Confine.

Volcanic eruptions and La Niña expected to make for an interesting winter season

Workplace violence in healthcare is its own epidemic: one that survey data puts some hard numbers on. According to a 2021 survey of nurses by Hospital IQ, 90% of respondents were considering leaving the profession in the next year, and 72% said they were experiencing burnout long before the COVID-19 pandemic.

To address this, the Crisis Prevention Institute (CPI) has published the Workplace Violence Prevention Handbook, a free resource detailing recommendations and strategies to help healthcare professionals across the board improve their organizations’ workplace violence prevention programming.

Be forewarned that CMS and other surveyors who were lax on some requirements within the physical environment during the COVID-19 public health emergency (PHE) may be looking for those deficiencies now that the PHE is drawing down.

Review your policies and procedures about spiking IV bags and block charting during rapid titration because the two largest accrediting organizations, The Joint Commission (TJC) and DNV Healthcare, have recently issued FAQs on the subjects.

While the COVID-19 public health emergency isn’t quite over, it’s becoming clear that surveys by The Joint Commission (TJC) have largely ramped back up to pre-pandemic levels.

Be ready for surveyors with The Joint Commission to be ramping back up pre-pandemic levels. And the environment of care, fire safety and facilities, as always, will be key targets during surveys.

Lauris V. Freidenfelds, vice president of security risk consulting with Telgian Engineering & Consulting, has been in many roles as a healthcare security leader. He’s a nationally recognized security and emergency management consultant.

The COVID-19 pandemic necessitated the accelerated uptake of technology, says Patty Hayward, vice president of strategy, healthcare, and life sciences with Talkdesk. “Everyone needed healthcare, but they couldn’t go to their in-person providers in a lot of cases, so they turned to their phones,” she says. “These phone systems were not set up for that, so we saw the rapid adoption of technology offering ways to interact with patients.”