-
This column runs occasionally in Hospital Access Management and addresses questions regarding the Emergency Medical Treatment
and Labor Act.
-
Access managers with responsibility for emergency department registration will want to be aware of the proposed new ED overcrowding standard from the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations that could become effective in early 2004.
-
Implementation of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act privacy rule appears to be going surprisingly well, thanks to extensive planning and a public already used to being informed about privacy practices. Thats the consensus of a sampling of access managers who spoke with Hospital Access Management about their hospitals experience with the regulation.
-
-
Health care organizations aware of their need for systemic change but short on the capital required increasingly are taking a two-pronged approach: Make some quick revenue-producing hits first, and then implement the longer-term solutions. Thats just one of the strategies in place at Parkland Health and Hospital System in Dallas.
-
A Mexican laborer injured himself on the job when a piece of metal entered his eye. He did not seek medical attention until the next day. The day after that, he was referred to an emergency department (ED), where the eye was finally appropriately treated. The surgery was performed too long after the injury occurred to save the laborers sight.
-
Time needed to document security compliance; OCR pushes for voluntary compliance; Help available for employers;
-
URAC has released a draft set of HIPAA Security Accreditation standards for public comment. Once the program is completed, it will enable health care organizations to display a commitment to information security and demonstrate that they have adopted the necessary policies and procedures to ensure health information security.
-
For Baystate Health System, a $1 billion integrated health system operating in western Massachusetts, HIPAA compliance has been seen as more than a technology issue. It also is a major cultural and operational issue that has an impact on systemwide operations and the way the system and its staff interact with patients.
-
The road has been paved for using bar codes on all medications to reduce errors, with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announcing recently that is proposing a rule requiring bar codes on all medication packages, a mandate that some say would significantly improve patient safety in the nations hospitals.