All Entries in the "Joint Commission" Category

Evaluating your emergency management inventory process

Joint Commission standard EM.03.01.01, EP 3 requires an annual review of your emergency management inventory process.

This is where you look back at exercises and real events and see [more]

Properly secured medical gas cylinders center on convenience — that’s all

I’m told there was a mention at the ASHE conference that The Joint Commission might introduce a compressed medical gas cylinder standard in 2011.

And what wonders would result from a compressed gas storage standard? Oh yes, that’ll force [more]

Hospital fire reveals several truths about emergency preparedness

There’s an update on a fire at Lawrence & Memorial Hospital in New London, CT, in this week’s issue of our free sister e-newsletter, Emergency Management Alert.

As a consultant, I frequently ask folks what kind of scenarios they are using to comply with EM.03.01.03, EP 3, which mandates an emergency response exercise, including an escalating scenario in which the hospital is unable to be supported by the local community.

One of the truisms I’ve observed over time is that [more]

Alarm transmission options are tight when it comes to fire drill requirements

There was discussion swirling this week on HCPro’s Patient Safety Talk group about whether folks are required to actually pull the fire alarm during a fire drill.

Unfortunately this is not quite as clear-cut as one would want, though perhaps [more]

Nuclear medicine admixing and USP 797 implications

During client work at one organization, I heard that nuclear medicine folks were doing some admixing of nuke med preparations. A question was raised as to whether there would be a need for USP 797 compliance.

Some of you may remember the rage several years back [more]

New fall seminars about life safety and emergency management

We’re happy to announce two brand new professional development seminars that will focus on the hot topics of Life Safety Code compliance and emergency managment: [more]

Hurry up and wait for The Joint Commission at the 39-month mark

There’s been a lot of discussion (almost reaching the level of consternation, I dare say) in various forums about The Joint Commission’s survey schedule for this year, and it does appear that visits from our esteemed Chicago friends are in many instances sliding past the triennial survey anniversaries (and not even a card!).

The reasons for this are likely [more]

Bimonthly safety committee meetings are no longer mandated in the EC standards

You may remember an environment of care requirement in the past that mandated safety committee meetings occur at least bimonthly.

That specific requirement under the old EC.9.20 [more]

You aren’t mandated to develop departmental disaster plans

There is no Joint Commission requirement for you to have department-level emergency management plans, unless you have determined through your drilling and evaluation process that there are sufficient complexities to warrant that additional level of planning.

Based on Joint Commission standards, the only requirement is for each organization [more]

Immediate threats to life, Joint Commission style

During a keynote at the ASHE conference this afternoon, George Mills, senior engineer at The Joint Commission, outlined four immediate threats to life in the physical environment that tie into the top tier of criticality scoring: [more]