-
There is an extremely high level of confusion, misunderstanding, frustration, anxiety, fear, and anger in a broad range of people and organizations as the April 14 compliance date for the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) privacy rule nears. Thats the finding of the National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics, a statutory public advisory body to the secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) in the area of health data and statistics.
-
Recent news reports of patients who lived for months with surgical items mistakenly left in them has spurred the Association of periOperative Registered Nurses (AORN) to urge that such incidents be reported to the national system it has set up to record such errors.
-
The National Quality Forum (NQF) announced recently that it had approved 26 safe practices that should be universally utilized in health care to reduce the risk of adverse events. Four additional practices will continue to be evaluated and may be approved in the coming months.
-
Translating medical information for patients who dont speak English has always been a difficult issue for health care providers, but evidence is mounting to suggest that health care providers risk major lawsuits from medical errors traced to inadequate translation.
-
Conventional wisdom - and indeed, much literature - supports the idea that satisfied patients are impressed with short waiting times, good parking, convenient locations, and sophisticated equipment.
-
The lofty vision of Baptist Health Care Corp. of Pensacola, FL, is to be the best health system in America. It may well be on its way. According to one authoritative source, Baptist Health may at the very least be the best health care employer in the entire country.
-
The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) and the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) have announced the formation of the Partnership for Human Research Protection (PHRP) to offer a new accreditation program that will seek to protect the safety and rights of participants in clinical trials and research programs in public and private hospitals, academic medical centers, and other research facilities in the United States and abroad.
-
Conflict of interest is such an inherent flaw in the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations structure that the federal government should take over the responsibility and make the accrediting body a contractor, says U.S. Rep. Pete Stark (D-CA).
-
Imagine promising that every patient who walks through the door of your emergency department (ED) will be seen in 15 minutes.
-
Quality of care is improved significantly when emergency department (ED) physicians are allowed to deliver clot-busting drugs to appropriate stroke patients without waiting for dedicated stroke teams, according to a new study.