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The status of employee health is rising, but so are the expectations. As part of a heightened focus on reducing hospital infections, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is developing a national survey program that will include interviews with employee health professionals.
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A new Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) hospital inspection initiative includes the following questions for employee health professionals regarding prevention of transmission of infections to health care workers. The tool includes these interview questions:
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Just how clean are your pharmacies and oncology units of contamination from chemotherapy agents and other hazardous drugs? That has been a vexing question, but now several companies are offering testing.
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If you want to boost hand hygiene, the right sign can help. Health care workers are more likely to wash up out of concern for patient safety, researchers report.
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More hospital employees than ever are receiving the influenza vaccine. A national survey shows that by mid-November, about 78% of them had been vaccinated a rate that is almost double the rate of about five years ago.
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In tough economic times, it's hard to promote laws or regulations that will cost employers money. But what if the money spent ends up saving employers even more? That is the argument that is propelling safe patient handling legislation in New York.
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Cameras nab you if you run a red light. They keep watch over ATMs, parking lots and airport travelers. And now they are being used to make sure health care workers wash their hands.
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When three of the 13 nurses on an inpatient oncology unit in Wisconsin were diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, the employees were alarmed: Was something in the workplace triggering MS? An investigation found no relationship between the workplace and MS, but it did result in recommendations about handling hazardous drugs.
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A typical hospital collects hundreds, if not thousands, of data points for reporting to state, federal, and accreditation agencies. It's so much information that trying to determine what is most important to share with a hospital board could become a tedious chore.
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If you say it out loud, people will agree intuitively: You can learn more from your failures than from your successes. But that doesn't mean people want to trumpet what doesn't work.
