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With a vaccine shortage projected for novel H1N1 influenza A, only the highest priority groups are likely to be offered the shot when initial lots are cleared for distribution this fall.
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Outpatient surgery managers in hospitals, surgery centers, and offices still have a lot of questions about The Joint Commission's (TJC's) National Patient Safety Goal (NPSG) on reducing the risk of health care-acquired infections, despite the fact that this goal must be fully implemented in a few short months.
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In a likely prelude to a battle over mandating a swine flu vaccine, the New York State Health Department overrode nursing union protests recently in enacting an emergency regulation requiring seasonal flu shots for health care workers (HCWs).
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While the details of health care reform were uncertain at press time, one point is clear: Change will be coming to outpatient surgery regardless, and providers need to be prepared.
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A new report has identified 19 practices that reduce facility times for ambulatory centers performing cataract extraction with lens insertion.
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Every manager wants to believe that the credentialing process has properly vetted all the organization's health care professionals to ensure that they are qualified and have no known criminal record.
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A woman goes in for an abdominal hysterectomy, bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy and omentectomy. Subsequent pain, nausea, and vomiting lead to medical attention and hospitalization, but the cause isn't identified.
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According to the Ambulatory Surgery Center Association, the economic stimulus package passed by Congress earlier this year included several changes to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) involving privacy of patient information:
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The administrative manager of a surgery center had been asking to have access to the banking account, but the business manager said that the center was "maxed out on users" and he couldn't give her access.
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Looks like I struck a nerve with the column on physicians as employees ("Meet your new employee: Dr. Smith, surgeon," Same-Day Surgery, July 2009).