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At Barnes-Jewish Hospital's Center for Diversity and Cultural Competence, St. Louis, MO, the Daylight program trains volunteers recognized and influential women from local refugee and immigrant communities to provide to their peers culturally sensitive information about breast health and breast cancer, including early detection methods. The program has been profiled by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ).
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Most patient education managers would agree that a system for documenting understanding of the teaching that takes place is important. Yet there is not a cookie-cutter method that institutions follow.
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The Asthma Management Program at Children's Medical Center in Dallas is a good example of a best practice in education. It received certification from The Joint Commission in 2003 for disease-specific care for pediatric asthma.
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Frequent news stories and headlines about the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights' (OCR) crackdown on covered entities that have reported data breaches or other privacy rule violations increase the importance of continually assessing compliance with privacy and security rules.
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A 56-year-old man with complaints of impaired balance and light headedness presented to his local hospital. A resident and attending radiologist interpreted the man's CT scan and read the scan to show old lesions. A physician assistant at the hospital diagnosed the man with vertigo and discharged him with medication. As the symptoms became more severe, the man approached his primary care physician, who completed a more thorough workup. Ultimately, a brain biopsy revealed an intravascular lymphoma.
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Compliance officers have taken on increasingly important and visible roles in healthcare organizations, and that role can lead to ruffled feathers when that person and the risk manager disagree on their authority and responsibilities. The result, too often, is an internal spat that prevents either party from doing their jobs well and exposes the provider to liability.
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The news from the Joint Commission Center for Transforming Healthcare is not good: No matter how much healthcare providers and regulatory bodies stress the need to avoid wrong-site surgery, this sentinel event still occurs about 40 times a week.
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The report on obstetrics claim from Crico Strategies reinforces some of the facts that make risk managers worry about their OB units.
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The experience at St. John's Regional Medical Center in Joplin, MO, after the tornado is an excellent example of how electronic health records (EHRs) can improve disaster response if the system is structured correctly, says Elliot Davis, internet security officer and director of information technology at Beaumont Health System in Grosse Pointe, MI. The key is to have the data accessible from a distant location, as St. John's did, or on "the cloud," in which data is stored on another company's servers or spread through the Internet, Davis says.
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Cloud computing can be a lifesaver for healthcare providers recovering from a disaster, says Bassam Tabbara, PhD, chief technology officer and co-founder of Symform, a data storage provider based in Seattle.
