Hospital Peer Review – May 1, 2014
May 1, 2014
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When it comes to healthcare quality, should titles matter?
A few years back, staff suggestion boxes were a big thing. It was as if there was a burgeoning realization that people who didnt have big titles might sometimes have a good idea on how to make things better. -
Public quality reporting: a plea for consistency
Every few months, another big headline is splashed across the mainstream media, touting the top 100 hospitals, or the best cancer doctors, or your citys number-one neurologist. But what is missing from these stories is the fact that often, a facility or physician can rank in different places on different lists fabulous on one, middling on another. -
Why QI plus IP is more than alphabet soup
It seems impossible when she recalls it, but Kathleen Kohut, MSN, CIC, CNOR, director of infection prevention at Cone Health System in Winston-Salem, NC, tells a story of an infection prevention department that was left out of the discussion of meeting infection prevention standards for an upcoming Joint Commission survey. -
CDC updates hospital infection data
If it seems as if your hospital takes two steps forward and one back when trying to conquer healthcare-associated infection rates, you arent alone. -
CDC updates surgical site infection guidelines
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has updated guidelines for preventing surgical-site infections, focusing on some difficult issues in an exhaustive and largely futile attempt to find conclusive data on various practices. -
Only a 50% adherence rate to infection control in ICUs
Hospital intensive care units (ICUs) in the U.S. report a high level of infection prevention policies in place, but the numbers fall off sharply when actual adherence to the interventions are factored in, researchers report. -
How hot is too hot for patients?
A decade ago, ECRI investigated a series of incidents in which patients were burned sometimes severely by blankets that were warmed to a high temperature and placed on body parts that either temporarily or permanently lacked sensation. -
Same strains still mean new shots
Next seasons trivalent influenza vaccines will contain the same strains as this years vaccine but its still important to get the annual flu vaccine, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. -
Transition to ICD-10 code sets delayed
On April 1, 2014, President Obama signed into law the Protecting Access to Medicare Act of 2014, which directs the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to postpone post-payment audits of the two-midnight rule until after March 31, 2015.