-
Like many outpatient surgery facilities, you face drug shortages. You might have felt relief that youve been able to rely on compounding pharmacies to obtain the drugs you need in the single-use dosage you need until you learned about a nationwide meningitis outbreak from contaminated steroid medications originating at a Massachusetts compounding facility.
-
With outpatient surgery becoming increasingly complex, in terms of technology and patients, there is a growing trend toward requiring nurses to have their bachelor's of science in nursing (BSN) degree.
-
The Joint Commission has released its seventh episode in the animated Speak Up video series, "Speak Up: Know Your Rights." The new video features characters as they depict the rights every patient should expect from their caregivers.
-
The Joint Commission has updated its frequently asked question about non-licensed, non-employee individuals for the ambulatory, hospital, critical access hospital, and office-based programs, as well as home care, laboratory, and long-term care programs.
-
The National Quality Forum (NQF) board of directors has endorsed 14 patient safety measures with a focus on complications. The measures address a range of quality concerns, including surgical safety, medication safety, venous thromboembolism, and care coordination.
-
The SAFE CARE Patient Safety Education program uses free posters that healthcare facilities can hang in patient rooms or patient care areas that allow patients and families to instantly access and watch safety videos by topic.
-
Outpatient surgery programs around the country are reporting that accreditation survey teams are sending an additional surveyor who targets infection control during the survey process.
-
The Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Health Care (AAAHC) has announced an accreditation program that is tailored to the specific needs of practices that offer office-based surgery (OBS), and it is priced to be cost-effective for smaller practices. AAAHC defines an OBS center as an organization that has no more than four physicians/dentists and no more than two operating/procedure rooms.
-
Whether it's the smartphones, tablet computers, or e-readers, new technology is all the rage these days. At the Shriners Hospitals for Children in Erie, PA, this mobile technology is being used to help patients.
-
In what is getting to be a familiar, tragic refrain, the improper use of single-dose vials (SDVs) has resulted in pain clinic patients in Arizona and Delaware acquiring serious bacterial infections that were "completely preventable," the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports.