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A new targeted solutions tool (TST) from The Joint Commission's Center for Transforming Healthcare to address wrong-site surgeries cut those surgeries by 63% in the preoperative area, 51% in the OR, and 46% in the scheduling area during the testing period. These reductions are significant, considering that there are as many as 40 wrong-site surgeries each week.
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I receive some interesting questions as a result of Same-Day Surgery newsletter. Some are funny, others serious; there are a few sad ones, and some are outrageous. I tried this month to pick ones that I think might be universal to all surgery providers. I hope you agree.
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As part of The Joint Commission's Speak Up initiatives for patient safety, the agency is offering colorful posters that feature the characters from the Speak Up videos. The posters can be downloaded for free.
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When examining compliance issues before your survey by The Joint Commission, consider the quote from former president Ronald Reagan: "Trust, but verify."
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The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has released proposed guidelines for Medicare's new ASC quality reporting program, available by the Ambulatory Surgery Center Association (ASCA) on ASCA Connect at http://bit.ly/K6OM1O. According to the ASCA, the proposal provides the following information:
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(Editor's note: Have you experienced sexism in your position? Or do you know of a good way to avoid this problem creeping up in your program? Contact Joy Dickinson, Executive Editor, at
[email protected].)
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In what the Ambulatory Surgery Center Association (ASCA) is labeling a victory in the final ASC quality reporting elements, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) accepted the association's proposal to exclude any secondary payer claims from the data completeness calculation.
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The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is scaling back its oversight of needle safety issues in ambulatory care and ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs), though noting that some 3,200 inspections done in fiscal years 2010 and 2011 "have found that deficient infection control practices are widespread in ASCs," according to a report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO).
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A patient shows up for outpatient surgery and informs you she has a microdermal implant. You're not sure exactly what that is or what that means in terms of pressure points, friction when moving, or other issues.