Former Joint Commission VP among those appearing at our one-day emergency management conference

Joseph Cappiello

Get help analyzing your hospital’s disaster plans while also bolstering your professional development during HCPro’s Emergency Management Coordinator’s Workshop, which takes place October 26 in Atlanta.

Our experts for the program include:

• Joseph Cappiello, chair of Cappiello & Associates in Elmhurst, IL, and former vice president for accreditation field operations at The Joint Commission
• James Kendig, vice president of safety and security for Health First, Inc., based in Rockledge, FL
• Mary Russell, senior hospital project manager at the Florida Department of Health’s Office of Public Health Preparedness

Click here to read our speakers’ full bios and our show’s agenda.

No hard-and-fast rule to discuss patient safety at EC committee meetings

There is no Joint Commission mandate for patient-safety-related concerns to be managed through the environment of care or safety committee.

Some of the former EC standards (or more properly, EPs) that were removed with the 2009 changeover did imply [more]

Ultimate fighting star’s alleged assaults reinforce the danger of healthcare work

The subject of workplace violence in hospitals rose out of the weeds again yesterday with word that a Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) star had been arrested for allegedly assaulting three nurses at a hospital in Nevada on Tuesday.

Fighter Junie Browning, who was fired by UFC following his arrest, originally went to St. Rose Dominican Hospital’s [more]

Sinks, ice machines, and a little infection control

A little while back, I was asked about an under-the-sink area that was dirty with chipped Formica along the bottom of the sink cabinet. The same organization had dripping ice machines that were rusty.

As it turns out, there is a dual applicability to these problems, as they can be curtailed [more]

Ensure someone in-house at least monitors medical equipment maintenance

From an empirical standpoint, each department with medical equipment being maintained by contract should have an inventory and be able to quantify compliance with whatever preventive maintenance sequence is identified.

The Joint Commission grants a lot of leeway [more]

A deadly surgical fire results in CMS scrutiny

The case of Heartland Regional Medical Center in Marion, IL, shows just how important surgical fire prevention is for a hospital in terms of bad publicity and Medicare reimbursement.

As noted in my HealthLeaders Media story last month, on September 2 a flash fire occurred on a patient undergoing surgery at Heartland Regional. That patient later died of her injuries.

I just read earlier today [more]

The Joint Commission doesn’t mandate infant abduction drills, but …

I suspect that the reason The Joint Commission doesn’t (or perhaps even can’t) require infant abduction drills under EC.02.01.01 is that not everyone has to manage the security of those at-risk populations.

My take on this concern is that Joint Commission officials have tried to create standards and performance elements that can be applied [more]

Risk assessments are the way to go with power strip use

As you might guess, I’m in favor of using the risk assessment process to look at the issue of power strip use in hospitals.

And I’d start with a determination of whether a power strip is the most appropriate strategy, with the recognition that once you start with the power strip as opposed to additional electrical outlets, you’ve increased [more]

Here’s a way to increase life safety awareness among nurses

Brad Keyes

One of my favorite sessions at last week’s Life Safety Code Solutions for Hospitals seminar was a discussion about how to better engage nurses about life safety requirements.

The key, said Brad Keyes, safety consultant for The Greeley Company, is to bring the Life Safety Code into the realm of patient safety.

And that means, for example, not ordering nurses to take a blood pressure cuff machine out of the corridor because it encroaches on minimum clear widths under the Life Safety Code. Nurses won’t relate to rules like that.

Instead, a better approach would be [more]

Keeping a grip on your outsourced medical equipment management

When it comes to medical device management outsourced to vendors, you might consider monitoring the performance of equipment managed by contract as a function of downtime.

It may be that you are paying for more service than [more]