After the Fort Hood shootings, Twitter proves useful for one hospital

For many people, social media sites like Twitter and Facebook are frequently used to quote movie lines or discuss whether they had coffee or hair of the dog with their Corn Flakes. But from a professional standpoint, The Joint Commission is encouraging the use of social sites for emergency management purposes.

Thursday’s shootings at Fort Hood, TX, let one facility rev up its Twitter presence with useful updates and information. [more]

Even splintered, life safety standards top the citation list so far in 2009

When The Joint Commission announced a while back that the old EC.5.20 was the top cited standard in hospitals in 2008, there some observers (including me) who thought that statistic would be hard to repeat. After all, it was reasoned, the all-encompassing EC.5.20 had splintered into various new life safety standards in 2009, none of which would carry the punch of their predecessor.

Well, we non-believers were wrong. Information just released by Joint Commission Resources yesterday shows that for the first half of 2009, two life safety standards and an environment of care standard – all of them related to fire protection requirements – comprised three of the top five most cited standards in hospitals. [more]

Be wary about using fire drills as emergency management tests

I was recently asked whether fire drills could count towards The Joint Commission’s requirements for emergency management tests under EM.03.01.03.

I suppose if you evaluated a fire drill to the extent called for under [more]

New development: CMS now allows six-year damper testing in hospitals

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued a memo to its state survey agencies that now formally allows hospitals to use six-year testing frequencies for fire and smoke dampers.

What’s that mean for hospitals? [more]

Doctor stabbed: When something goes wrong, security feels the heat

Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston finds itself in the unenviable position of trying to deal with a pair of high-profile security incidents within the past nine days. [more]

OSHA raises the stakes in the N95 respirator debate

The October 20 edition of our free sister e-newsletter, OSHA Healthcare Connection, has generated a fair amount of what I like to think of as consternation.

At this point, I think most folks are familiar with the CDC coming down squarely on the side of N95 respirators versus surgical masks for use as personal protective equipment during our little H1N1 event.

I’ve heard from some folks [more]

Try a free sample of our customizable paper patients

After months of development, we’re happy to announce our new Emergency Preparedness Solutions series, which we think you’ll like.

The highlight for me, because it’s something I’ve wanted to see us publish for a long time, is a collection of 80 paper patients that are customizable to your hospital’s drill or triage efforts. [more]

Further thoughts on patient-owned equipment in the hospital

A quick follow-up to a post I made last week about patient-owned equipment coming into the hospital:

One thing you might want to consider relative to these types of devices is whether [more]

In halting mandatory flu shots, NY had to step back

For now, the war drums in New York state can stop beating. In an about-face, New York Governor David Paterson announced yesterday that healthcare workers in the state will no longer be required to receive seasonal or H1N1 flu vaccinations as a condition of employment.

Let’s be blunt: It’s hard to win a battle against nurses. They collectively fuel the engine that runs healthcare, and they also possess a powerful voice. Some nurses get flu shots, some don’t. What New York’s initial rule and subsequent backtracking show [more]

Joint Commission offers guidance, but no mandates, for patient-owned items

Many of you deal with patient-owned equipment, such as hair dryers, coming into the hospital.

The Joint Commission published an FAQ on this topic last year, and this is one of those instances in which, in opening the risk assessment door, the FAQ provides just enough semi-specific information to confuse matters. [more]