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The importance of encryption is emphasized with most of the recent major breaches added to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) list of breaches. Seven of the breaches involved laptops, while the other two involved paper records.
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Protecting the contents of a root cause analysis (RCA) requires much more than slapping a peer review label on the file and assuming that label means it is off limits to prying eyes. Peer review privilege might not protect your RCA at all, but there are other ways to limit the potential downside from someone reading about all your shortcomings.
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If you have tried looking for specific information on the National Quality Forum (NQF) website and been flummoxed by too many or too few query responses, you might want to check out the new Field Guide to NQF Resources.
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Just about everyone agrees that alarm management is a big issue in healthcare.
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AHRQ awards measures clearinghouse contract.
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You can get hard numbers about things like infection rates and whether a heart attack patient gets aspirin within a specified time period in the emergency department. But can how a patient feels tell you anything important about quality? And can you put a number on something as fuzzy as a feeling?
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The regular collection and sharing of data with stakeholders to find and fix problems goes by many names the Virginia Mason Production System, Toyota Management System, Lean, Six Sigma, Quality Improvement Circles. All are based on the notion that to make things better, you need to look at data often and make changes quickly based on what you see. It is an idea that is gaining traction in healthcare as more peer reviewed studies showcase its potential for success.
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Electronic health records (EHRs) are supposed to make your life easier everything at hand, collected automatically. But thats not always the reality, and that fact is highlighted in a new report from the American Hospital Association (AHA) on how well hospitals are using EHRs to report on clinical quality measures.
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If you read it in a peer reviewed journal, it must be right right? And if there is an evidence-based practice, then the evidence must be stellar. Not so fast, says Lisa Spruce, DNP, RN, ACNS, ACNP, ANP, CNOR, director of evidence-based perioperative practice at the Association of periOPerative Registered Nurses (AORN) in Denver. Spruce is a big advocate of healthcare stakeholders becoming critical readers and understanding exactly what kind of data makes for good evidence. Doing so can make anyone better at determining what practices to mimic or adapt to local needs, and what can just be ignored.
