In 2009, The Joint Commission added Leadership standard LD.03.01.01, ”Leaders create and maintain a culture of safety and quality throughout the hospital,” to recognize that behavior that ...

The National Quality Forum (NQF) recently endorsed two outcomes-based measures from the American College of Surgeons (ACS) National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (NSQIP). The measures, surgical...

Despite sustained attention from hospital leaders, wait times in the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) ED were considerably longer than desired. Knowing that longer wait times means poor ...

The Joint Commission requires healthcare facilities to train employees annually. Part of that training includes best practices for infection control (IC), but effective training requires infection pre...

During summer 2011, AHAP ­surveyed hospitals coast to coast to gauge how tracer methodology has evolved in recent years and how effective hospitals are finding this challenging, but often pivotal ...

Patient Safety Monitor Journal, April 2012...

Fatigue has recently been recognized in the medical literature to increase the incidence of adverse events. Fatigue is a widely recognized patient safety issue. Nurses who worked over 12 hours per day...

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) has released its most recent Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture: 2012 User Comparative Database ­Report, which includes responses fro...

True or False: Hospitals are required to have a smoking policy. The policy must not permit smoking except under certain, specified circumstances. ...

The Joint Commission tracks and trends the most-cited standards to help healthcare organizations identify where the most challenging areas in the year’s surveys are occurring. The Joint Commis...