Editor’s Note: Click the PDF button above for a full edition of the November 2017 edition of Briefings on Accreditation and Quality
CMS immediate jeopardy follows possible restraint, seclusion issues
This September, a Missouri hospital found out the hard way that when not addressed quickly, restraint and seclusion deficiencies can threaten a hospital’s ability to remain open, as well as who keeps their job. CMS twice this year ruled that Mercy Hospital Springfield was putting patients in immediate jeopardy for what it deemed abusive incidents, including some involving restraint and seclusion. This included one incident where a nurse pinned a violent patient to the floor and didn’t report it.
Surveyors on the lookout for suicide hazards
Annually, there are 460,000 emergency department visits that occur following cases of self-harm, and the patients treated during those visits are six times more likely to make another suicide attempt in the future. Nationally, suicide is the 10th leading cause of death, a fact that hasn’t gone unnoticed by CMS or The Joint Commission.
Q&A: How to improve patient handoffs
Patient handoffs continue to be a major concern for hospitals. In September, The Joint Commission published Sentinel Event Alert 58 on inadequate handoff communications and its effect on patient care. Handoffs (also known as transitioning) are the passing of patients between caregivers, plus the information that caregivers exchange during the process. The latter represents a major point of failure for healthcare; each handoff runs the risk of key treatment information being garbled, forgotten, or not passed on.
Joint Commission’s top-cited standards list gives hospitals plenty to work on
In what is likely a result of a new survey matrix, new or revised Life Safety and Environment of Care requirements, and increased pressure from CMS, hospitals scored much worse across the board on The Joint Commission’s list of most challenging standards for the first half of 2017, compared to the same period last year. The Joint Commission released its list in the September issue of Perspectives.