-
A new infection control standard that will require hospitals to offer influenza vaccinations to staff members, volunteers, and independent licensed practitioners who have close patient contact will take effect Jan.1, 2007, for organizations accredited by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations. The new requirement does not apply to ambulatory facilities.
-
Medication lists for patients, development of a process for patients to express concern, and identification of patients at risk for suicide are the main changes and additions to requirements of the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations' 2007 National Patient Safety Goals for ambulatory and hospital-based outpatient surgery programs.
-
Staff need a thorough understanding of the principles of decontamination and sterilization to perform flash sterilization properly, says Ramona Conner, RN, MSN, CNOR, perioperative nursing specialist at the Center for Nursing Practice at the Association of periOperative Registered Nurses (AORN).
-
With all of these problems, should you flash sterilize at all? "They should do it when they have no other choice," says Ramona Conner, RN, MSN, CNOR, perioperative nursing specialist at the Center for Nursing Practice at the Association of periOperative Registered Nurses (AORN). "It should not be routine."
-
While a key component of preventing surgical site infections is to educate staff members and physicians, don't forget that your patients and their family members need to understand the basics of infection control and infection identification.
-
In some long-awaited good news for surgical hospitals, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has publicly announced that it doesn't plan to extend the moratorium. However, specialty hospitals that open in the future will face tighter scrutiny, according to testimony by CMS administrator Mark McClellan before a Senate Finance Committee.
-
You won't get paid for a procedure until you bill for it. That's why participants in the Ambulatory Surgery Non-Clinical Study for Colonoscopy focus on getting payments upfront and to getting bills out to insurance companies and Medicare quickly.
-
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has clarified Medicare policy for payment and billing of services such as implants and prosthetics that are not covered by the ambulatory surgery center (ASC) facility fee. The notice informs providers about which additional services are to be paid and to whom they are to be billed.
-
A surgery center opens in a community, and rumors are spread about the quality of care provided by the physicians there.
-
