The Wisconsin Hospital Association (WHA) is joining 12 other states in standardizing the colors used for hospital code alerts. The move comes after many instances in which patients who transferred to different hospitals were assumed to have certain conditions because of the color of their wrist bands. Now, all hospitals will have the same standardized set of colors signifying different conditions, warnings, or risks. The colors chosen are: White or clear for patient idenfication Yellow for fall risk Red for allergy Purple for a ’do not resuscitate’ patient Doctors working in multiple hospitals were being forced to learn different colors for different codes, creating a potential hazard. To read more, click here.

The Joint Commission has released its revised standards, rationales, and elements of performance for 2009. These standards, set to take effect as of January 1, 2009, are available through The Joint Commisson’s Web site and reflect the results of the Standards Improvement Initiative (SII), a program intended to clarify and consolidate existing standards, remove redundancy, and ensure that the standards are, on the whole program-specific. SII also includes a re-numbering of all standards intended to allow for ease of organization as well as simplify adding new standards in the future. In order to help organizations compare and contrast the new standards with previous versions, The Joint Commission has included a history tracking report on the Web site as well. To access the new hospital standards, click here.

The American Medical Association (AMA) has come out against many of the conditions on The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ (CMS) no pay list of 17, reports American Medical News. The conditions on this list, eight of which will not be paid for as of October 1, 2008, are considered preventable by CMS. The AMA contends that many of these conditions are not preventable even when staff members follow evidence-based protocols. CMS originally came out with its list of eight conditions for which it would not pay in 2005. It added nine more conditions to that list in April 2008 and will deliver a final rule on them by August. To read the article click here.

The Joint Commission's 2009 National Patient Safety Goals (NPSGs) include more changes that ever before.
Are you prepared to take the steps necessary to comply?