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The Joint Commission (TJC)

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  • OSHA: Exercise for back pain recordable

    Imagine this scenario: A nurse has soreness and back pain related to patient handling and other work duties. A certified athletic trainer recommends a regimen of stretching and exercises to reduce the pain. Does that make the injury recordable?
  • OSHA targets workplace violence at hospitals

    Hospitals are places of high emotion and drama, of pain and fear, of last resort, and sometimes of desperation. In this patient-centered world, there has been a high tolerance of aggressive or explosive behavior. But not anymore.
  • OIG issues Work Plan for the next year

    The Office of Inspector General (OIG) at the Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) has issued its Work Plan for 2012, indicating what areas will be of most interest for investigations and enforcement action. Much of the work plan involves a greater focus on the new issues raised by the changes introduced by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA)
  • Final rule on ACOs comes with clarifications

    As the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released a final rule on implementation of the Medicare Shared Savings Program (MSSP) for accountable care organizations (ACOs), others released their notices regarding legal issues related to ACOs.
  • Tips for reporting Stark violation

    John B. Garver III, JD, and Jennifer Csik Hutchens, JD, attorneys in the Charlotte, NC, office of the law firm Robinson Brandshaw, offer these tips for healthcare risk managers deciding whether to use the Stark Voluntary Self-Referral Disclosure Protocol (SRDP), and if so, how to then prepare a SRDP submission.
  • Failure to respond to complaints about docs leads to suits, $19.75 million in settlements

    So far, 93 plaintiffs have filed lawsuits against a hospital and alleged sexual abuse by one of the hospital's endocrinologists. The doctor, the hospital's chief of endocrinology from the 1970s to the early 1990s, was accused of taking sexually explicit photos and recording videos of minors who were taking part in an alleged growth study the physician was conducting at the hospital.
  • Tread carefully when using Stark voluntary disclosure protocol

    When you've made a serious mistake, sometimes it is best to step forward and confess before the government regulators find out on their own. The federal Stark Law, governing physician self-referral, provides a mechanism for voluntary disclosing a violation, but using that option requires a carefully crafted game plan.
  • Access reports can make records more complete

    The access reports proposed by the Office for Civil Rights' proposed Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act ( HIPAA) accounting of disclosures rule could aid a plaintiff's attorney in filing a malpractice case, but they also could result in abandoning the case, says one plaintiff's attorney.
  • CMMI offering funds for safety improvements

    Based on the Institute for Healthcare Improvement's (IHI) model, the Partnership for Patients is a recently announced, public-private partnership aimed at reducing injuries and complications by 40% and hospital readmissions by 20% over three years.
  • 26% of providers say breach in past year

    About one-quarter of healthcare respondents reported that their organization has experienced a security breach in the past year, according to new survey results from the Healthcare Information Management and Systems Society (HIMSS) in Chicago.