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Hospitals will need to retrain all their employees on chemical hazards when the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration finalizes its changes to the Hazard Communication Standard.
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As of July 1, first-year medical residents may be getting a better night's sleep. New rules limit duty hours for interns to a 16-hour shift, ban them from moonlighting, and require them to have at least 8 hours free between duty hours.
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Being greener is safer. As hospitals join the sustainability movement, they are making the workplace safer for their own employees.
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When a single imported case of measles led to a small outbreak in Tucson, AZ, in 2008, two hospitals were forced to spend a total of some $800,000 to contain it, much of that related to ensuring the immunity of employees.
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The new rules of the Accreditation Council of Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) focus primarily on first-year residents to reduce fatigue and fatigue-related errors.
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The skin is a very effective barrier to hazards such as blood or body fluids. But because some chemicals can penetrate the skin, health care workers need to be aware of the risks and necessary protections, says Scott Dotson, PhD, CIH, an industrial hygienist with the Education and Information Division of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health in Cincinnati.
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Injuries from contaminated needles and other sharps that can cause infectious diseases are preventable, and shouldn't be tolerated as a cost of doing business by health care organizations charged with ensuring safety and preventing harm.
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The ethical decision-making process is similar to the case management process and the nursing process. The steps include:
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Now that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has launched a program that adjusts Medicaid payments for provider-preventable conditions, including healthcare-acquired conditions, it's essential for case managers to work with physicians to make sure all conditions that are present on admission are clearly documented on a patient's chart.
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One solution to perennial problems such as ethics issues might be the formation of an organizational ethics committee. Different from a clinical ethics committee, an organizational ethics committee deals with organizational dilemmas that should be solved in a formalized manner.