Look for CMS and accrediting organizations to start fully enforcing the agency’s recent interim rule requiring all staff at hospitals and other healthcare facilities to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 after the Supreme Court stayed an injunction that barred implementation. Meanwhile, the court said OSHA’s mandate for large employers to require workers to either be fully vaccinated or face regular mandatory testing for the deadly virus cannot go forward at this time.

Update your policies on vaccines and make sure the changes are approved before your next survey now that CMS, The Joint Commission (TJC), and the other accrediting organizations are going forward with enforcing the Biden administration’s requirement for healthcare workers to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19. Both TJC and CMS have issued guidance on the vaccine requirement.

For the eighth time since the COVID-19 pandemic was declared a national public health emergency (PHE), the secretary of Health and Human Services has extended the declaration for another 90 days, effective January 16.

Mac's Safety Space

While it seems that most of the world is trying to wish away the pandemic, healthcare continues to “fight the good fight” in this longest of sieges.

Newsletter: Patient Safety Monitor Journal

After years of decline, 2020 and 2021 saw record rises in U.S. drug overdose deaths. In the 12-month period that ended in April 2021, more than 100,000 Americans died of drug overdoses, an increase of nearly 30% from the prior year, according to provisional figures reported by the National Center for Health Statistics. Opioids such as illegal synthetic fentanyl were linked with most of them.

In conversations with reporters last July, Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, noted, “This is the highest number of overdose deaths ever recorded in a 12-month period.”

Newsletter: Inside Accreditation & Quality

Check manufacturer’s instructions for use (IFU) as well as nationally recognized standards when updating your policy on the regular maintenance and cleaning of washing machines and dryers used for patient belongings.

Surveyor concerns will be about infection control (IC), says Tanya Peduto, quality assurance & performance improvement coordinator and assistant quality manager at Western State Hospital in Staunton, Virginia.

Newsletter: Medical Environment Update

Sepsis is a problem that won’t go away. Globally, one in five deaths are caused by sepsis. In U.S. hospitals, sepsis is the leading cause of death and hospital readmissions. The condition is fast acting, is often misdiagnosed, and can be caused by a virus, bacteria, fungus or parasite.

But one of the biggest barriers to sepsis prevention and response is simple: knowledge. While most healthcare workers are aware of sepsis, many patients in the community aren’t. And with 87% of sepsis cases originating in the community, rather than in a facility, gaps in knowledge can be fatal.

“If [people] don’t realize that sepsis is a medical emergency, they’re just sitting at home thinking “this is OK, it’s going to get better,” says Sara Follin McMannus, RN, BSN, MBA, clinical advisor for the Sepsis Alliance, the leading sepsis organization in the U.S. that works to save live and reduce suffering from sepsis. “If they know the signs and symptoms of sepsis, that gets them to get help sooner.”

Newsletter: Healthcare Life Safety Compliance

Training and education in any professional role can help individuals improve their skills and learning competencies. Training and education opportunities, however, often get sidelined by day-to-day duties and lost in performance reviews. That should not be the case, and certainly when it comes to healthcare life safety compliance.

Training and education in this arena should be taken seriously, and it should be provided by experienced individuals, according to Ernest Allen, ARM, CSP, CPHRM, CHFM, life safety consultant. Life safety officials at hospitals and healthcare systems have plenty of opportunities for certifications and learning and should take advantage of them, he adds

Newsletter: Healthcare Safety Leader

Healthcare Safety Leader asked Brad Keyes, CHSP, owner of Keyes Life Safety Compliance and a consultant and expert on the Life Safety Code^®, for tips about safety and compliance with washing machines and dryers in patient laundry rooms in hospitals or behavioral health units. (For more on infection control in patient laundry rooms, go here.)

“The only reference in the 2012 Life Safety Code regarding ‘laundry rooms’ is found in 18.3.2.1 for new conditions and 19.3.2.1.5 for existing conditions that automatically requires laundry rooms larger than 100 square feet to comply with the respective hazardous room requirements. The washer and dryer rooms that you refer to for behavioral health units have always been less than 100 square feet that I have seen. So, obviously sections 18.3.2.1 and 19.3.2.1.5 do not apply,” says Keyes.