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Is it the end of an era for The Joint Commission? Following on the heels of Congress' move to require the organization to reapply for deeming authority for the first time, DNV Healthcare has been granted deeming authority from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).
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Complying with The Joint Commission's National Patient Safety Goals (NPSGs) can be a challenge, and managers are developing a variety of approaches to ensure compliance.
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The National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (NSQIP) began in 1994 in response to concern over the quality of care, specifically operative mortality rates, in VA hospitals. Since then it has expanded to all hospital settings and come under the auspices of the American College of Surgeons (ACS).
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Want to save money? Put up a cost savings suggestion box with rewards for employees and, potentially, physicians, advises Roger Pence, president of FWI Healthcare, an Edgarton, OH-based consulting firm primarily for ambulatory health care providers.
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Do you assume your patient data are secure? You might want to take a second look. SecureWorks, an Atlanta-based security services provider, is blocking an average of 15,543 attempted hacker attacks a day per health care client, compared to an average of 1,581 attacks per day per bank client.
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The Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Health Care (AAAHC) has announced its 2009 standards, including a new chapter on lithotripsy services, as well as medical home and behavioral health services.
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No more needlesticks. That sounds like a laudable goal that could prevent health care workers from being exposed to deadly diseases. But, in tandem, outpatient surgery managers need to maintain another important message that could actually cause their numbers to rise: Report all needlesticks.
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With the advent of pay for performance (P4P), what quality improvement professionals track and trend now could affect hospital reimbursement more than ever.
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Although EDstat, a new eight-bed area that was added to the ED at Reston (VA) Hospital Center about a year ago, is only open from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m., it has helped to improve the performance of the entire ED. For example, in early spring 2007, before the new area opened, the percentage of patients who left the ED before treatment ranged from 2%-2.5% (statistics were measured monthly). Today, that has been reduced to 0.3%-0.4%.
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An elderly man comes to your ED and is admitted to the hospital with severe dehydration and fever of unknown origin. Two days later, an X-ray reveals pneumonia.