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A new tool that calculates the financial and environmental impact of reprocessing is available from Phoenix, AZ-based Ascent, a division of Stryker Corp.
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Are you performing unnecessary preoperative tests? If so, you're wasting expensive staff time required to conduct them and analyze them, as well as supplies needed to conduct them. In addition, you're experiencing potentially unnecessary surgical delays due to false positives.
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More than 30% of Pennsylvania healthcare facilities have successfully implemented 21 potential recommendations for preventing wrong-site surgery, according to the Pennsylvania Patient Safety Authority (PPSA). Such efforts go a low way toward avoiding potentially costly lawsuits.
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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Safe Injection Practices Coalition have released new materials to make it easier for clinicians and others working in healthcare to learn and train others about following safe injection practices.
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Outcomes-based incentives for employer-sponsored workplace wellness programs are expected to become more common as a result of provisions in the Affordable Care Act that encourage their use, but some employers aren't waiting.
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Entering an overly complete history and examination on a patient presenting with a minor or simple complaint is one danger with electronic medical records (EMRs), especially when time-stamping makes such a lengthy examination unlikely, warns John Davenport, MD, JD, physician risk manager of a California-based health maintenance organization.
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While generally citing continued reductions in key health care associated infections (HAIs), a recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) surveillance report also revealed some outliers with high infection rates.
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When hospitals hire more nurses with four-year degrees, patient deaths following common surgeries decrease, according to new research by the Center for Health Outcomes and Policy Research at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing in Philadelphia, as reported in the March issue of Health Affairs. Less than half the nations nurses (45%) have baccalaureate degrees, according to the most recent data available (2008).
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Compliance with the bloodborne pathogen standard from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is an ongoing issue, and now apparent lack of compliance has resulted in a proposed $68,000 fine for a surgery center regarding claims that it failed to protect workers exposed to bloodborne pathogen hazards.