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The Joint Commission is calling on health care administrators to take the lead in preventing infections with multidrug-resistant organisms (MDROs), reminding them that current patient safety goals require CEOs to take responsibility for implementing programs to prevent these deadly and costly outcomes.
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The nuts and bolts of pandemic planning involve quantifiable items: Ventilators, respirators, antiviral medications, vaccine doses. But in the midst of drills and stockpiles and vaccine campaigns, don't forget about the psychosocial needs of your frontline employees.
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Stockpiling of personal protective equipment is an important component of pandemic planning. But how do you know just how many respirators to stockpile?
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An advisory panel is recommending less stringent infection control precautions for novel H1N1, but the move is just one step in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention examination of the issue.
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Every year, the basic message is the same: Get your flu shot. But hospitals around the country have found innovative ways to market that message - and get the attention of health care workers. Here are a few campaigns highlighted by the Joint Commission in its recent monograph on influenza vaccination.
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Fewer than half of health care workers receive their annual influenza immunization, according to federal surveys, despite a growing call for flu shots to protect patients as well as employees. Each year, hospitals gear up for annual flu campaigns but find they can spur little improvement in vaccination rates.
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One evening, ICU nurse Janet Braillard, RN, returned to work at Sutter Solano Medical Center in Vallejo, CA, after being out with a respiratory illness and discovered a new memo. There was a shortage of N95 respirators, the hospital said, and nurses would need to place their respirators in a plastic bag, keep them in their lockers, and reuse them until they were visibly damaged or soiled.
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Be prepared for a double strike of influenza this year - and a prolonged season of vaccination to combat it.
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A lead emergency department registrar position was created at Swedish Covenant Hospital, in order to improve collections in this challenging patient population, says Rose Jeanfreau, director of patient access Services at Swedish Covenant Hospital in Chicago.
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Training and education costs are often the first items on the "chopping block" when it's time for budget cuts at hospitals, which is bad news for patient access.