Hospital Peer Review articles from February 2003

Hospital Peer Review archives from February 2003

JCAHO: serious nosocomial infections are sentinel events, RCA necessary: emphasis on infection control part of JCAHO's patient safety focus.(Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations)(root cause analysis)
February 1, 2003... Serious nosocomial infections should be considered sentinel events and thoroughly investigated, according to new information from the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations. This interpretation could lead to a significant...

Six Sigma boosts quality with ongoing analysis: QI strategy promises to improve quality, finances.(quality improvement)
February 1, 2003... Quality managers in health care are hearing more about Six Sigma, the quality improvement strategy that has been taking hold in other industries for years now, and the statistics-focused techniques promise great improvements for hospitals and...

Think how records might be used before discarding: accreditation, legal concerns factor into decision. (Reader Question).
February 1, 2003... Question: How long do we need to keep quality improvement (QI) and peer review documents before tossing them out? I'm thinking of department or team QI reports, minutes from QI meetings, peer review worksheets with no adverse findings, and...

Public to get inside scoop on quality of providers: information to be posted on CMS web site.(Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services)
February 1, 2003... Before long, the public will gain access to information on the quality of health care that previously was available only to those on the inside. The federal government will begin publishing data this summer. Launched by the American...

NCQA releases draft standards for research: program seeks to promote self-evaluation.(National Committee for Quality Assurance)
February 1, 2003... The National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) recently released draft standards for its Human Research Protection Accreditation Program (HRPAP) for public comment. The new program is designed to ensure that rigorous processes are in place...

How's your outpatient `continuity of care'? (The Quality-Cost Connection).
February 1, 2003... Evaluating the continuity of patient care in ambulatory health care services is challenging. Continuity of care implies the progression of a predetermined plan for health care services without disruption of the plan. However, the ambulatory...

CE questions.
February 1, 2003... 5. Six Sigma is an analytic term that means what? A. eliminating all human error B. automating systems whenever possible A. having 3.4 defects per million opportunities D. instituting continuous quality improvement 6....

Meeting top performance levels could save lives: Solucient releases 100 Top Hospitals study.(100 Top Hospitals National Benchmarks for Success)
February 1, 2003... If overall performance in all acute-care U.S. hospitals were the same as the nation's top hospitals, close to 57,000 more patients could survive each year and nearly $9.5 billion in annual expenses could be saved, according to a new study. ...