Take a time-out to look at your Universal Protocol plan
Accreditation Connection, July 23, 2007
During a March press conference to discuss the report Improving America's Hospitals: A Report on Quality and Safety, Joint Commission President Dennis O'Leary stressed his dissatisfaction with the noncompliance rates of hospitals taking time-outs prior to surgery. Failure to take a time-out "is an occurrence that should never happen," O'Leary said.
However, when The Joint Commission released its compliance data from the first quarter of 2007 (go to The Joint Commission's site to view this full set of data), 21.2% of hospitals were still found to be noncompliant with Universal Protocol (UP) 1C, which requires a time-out before beginning any invasive procedure.
"Every healthcare provider wants to ensure the correct procedure is performed on the correct patient each and every time," says Lori Hagen, RN, CPHQ, chief of quality management at James H. Quillen VA Medical Center, in Mountain Home, TN.
"Although wrong-site surgery is rare, it is such a serious safety problem with institutions that it is concerning that they are still occurring at all."
The rate of wrong-site, wrong-patient, wrong-procedure surgeries is much lower than the time-out noncompliance rate, but during his press conference, O'Leary stressed that one instance of performing the wrong surgery on the wrong person is too many and is completely avoidable.
Access the full story in the July issue of Briefings on The Joint Commission; access is free for subscribers, nonsubscribers can sign up for a 30-day free trial of BOJExtra! or purchase a copy of the story for $10 by clicking here.
Related Products
-
Briefings on The Joint Commission
Briefings on The Joint Commission will help you with all of your accreditation and survey preparation needs. Every month...
-
The Joint Commission Mock Tracer Made Simple
This updated edition of our annual best-seller includes new tools and case studies of successful tracers from facilities...
-
Staffing Effectiveness Data:
You've spent an enormous amount of time, money, and effort collecting staffing effectiveness data - and you can still put it...
-
Simplifying Nursing Documentation
Implement a "two-form" solution that will cut nursing documentation in half while fully complying with Joint Commission...
Most Popular
- Articles
-
- HIPAA Q&A: Level of encryption needed for email
- Q&A: Acute respiratory failure diagnosis does not require intubation
- Featured blog post: Nurses face felony charges after reporting physician to the Texas Medical Board
- HIPAA Q&A: TPO disclosures to a business associate
- What does case-mix index mean to you?
- Capturing all necessary codes for IUD insertion and removal can be challenging
- Topic: CMS, OESS post new security compliance review information, checklist
- Identify potential Medicaid RAC target areas
- Q/A: Coding infusions to correct low potassium levels
- OB services: Coding inside and outside of the package
- E-mailed
-
- HIPAA Q&A: Level of encryption needed for email
- Q&A: Acute respiratory failure diagnosis does not require intubation
- Featured blog post: Nurses face felony charges after reporting physician to the Texas Medical Board
- Q/A: Coding infusions to correct low potassium levels
- CMS has reformulated payments for some bilateral procedures
- Oxygen Cylinder Storage Requirements
- Q&A: Follow CMS' coding guidelines when using modifier -25
- What does case-mix index mean to you?
- Hospitals are not bound by InterQual criteria for determining patient status
- Q/A: New code for image-guided minimally invasive lumbar decompression
- Searched