MHA's Society for Risk Management

NIST releases draft guide on cell phone, PDA security

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) released the draft publication SP 800-124, “Guidelines on Cell Phone and PDA Security,” on July 7.

The publication discusses the current use of cell phones and PDAs and offers insight into security issues surrounding their use, including potential threats, technology risks, and safeguards to mitigate them, according to the NIST Web site.

The publication is available on the NIST Web site. Comments will be accepted until August 8.

For more information or to comment on the publication, click here.

[ via HIPAA Weekly Advisor ]

Joint Commission posts the 2009 IC standards

The Joint Commission posted its 2009 infection control standards online last week.

Changes include renumbered standards in the Infection Prevention and Control chapter of the Comprehensive Accreditation Manual for Hospitals. The changes are effective January 1, 2009.

You can also find a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) addressing the 2008 National Patient Safety Goals (NPSG). The FAQ also includes changes from the 2009 goals announced last month.

[ via CLTC Weekly ]

Small business and the regulation maze: There is help available!

Small businesses provide about half of the US private sector jobs, half of the non-farm private gross domestic product (GDP), and are the sources of most technological innovations. But instead of doing what they do best, small business owners have to spend an inordinate amount of time and money finding ways to comply with reams of regulations. In fact, it is estimated that in 2006, businesses spend over $1.14 trillion complying with these regulations, and that the government spends over $41 billion administering and policing them.

Fortunately, there are numerous online sites that can help small businesses comply with these regulations. Some are from private sponsorships and some are free, courtesy of the US government. Unfortunately, few business owners have the time to search for them. The following report outlines resources provide roadmaps for small businesses looking to navigate the regulation maze! <p>

Please use the following link to see the report: Download compliance_white_paper.pdf

Study: Universal screening fails to reduce MRSA infections

A study to be reported in the March 12th Journal of the American Medical Association found that screening patients for methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus on admission to the hospital did not reduce the MRSA infection rate. The study of more than 21,000 surgical patients at a Swiss teaching hospital compared the use of rapid screening plus standard infection control measures with infection control measures alone.

“Overall, our real-life trial did not show an added benefit for widespread rapid screening on admission compared with standard MRSA control alone in preventing nosocomial MRSA infections in a large surgical department,” the authors conclude.

[ via AHA News Now ]

Sentinel Event Alert highlights MRI-related injuries

The Joint Commission issued this week its most recent Sentinel Event Alert, "Preventing accidents and injuries in the MRI suite."

More than 10 million magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans are conducted in the U.S. every year, according to Accreditation Connection. Five incidents relayed to the Joint Commission's Sentinel Event database resulted in four patient deaths. These incidents were caused by:

• a projectile
• cardiac events (three separate incidents)
• a misread scan, causing delay of treatment

A 2005 study by medical physicist Jason Launders, MSc, of the ECRI Institute, found that over a 10-year span there were 389 MRI-related events reported to the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) Manufacturer and User Facility Device Experience Database. This included pacemaker and insulin pump failures, burns (70% of reported incidents), and projectiles (10% of reported incidents).

Burns are frequently caused by wires and leads growing too hot, while projectiles are due to the fact that magnets in the MRI scanner are constantly active, making the risk of projectiles drawn to the magnets (e.g., pens, tools, cleaning equipment) a constant danger.

Additional information can be found on the Joint Commission's Web site here.

Trend: Hospitals improving informed consent process

Increasingly, U.S. hospitals have begun to improve their process for obtaining informed consent from patients, in part due to research concluding that most patients don't read consent forms (or understand them when the do read the forms), according to FierceHealthcare. Such a lack of communication not only increases the likelihood of lawsuits if something goes wrong, it can also interfere with patient safety, as people can't be their own watchdogs if they don't understand what's going on. Not only that, hospital consent processes are being scrutinized by CMS, which has recently issued guidelines requiring that they be "patient friendly."

To close this gap, some hospitals have begun showing patients education videos and diagrams to help them understand the procedures or treatments they are about to undergo. They're also offering forms in simplified language which leave out medical jargon. Meanwhile, to serve growing immigrant populations, hospitals are preparing consent forms in multiple languages. Some hospitals are even using technology which calculates the risk involved with given medical procedures for patients and sharing those results with patients before they sign.

To find out more about this trend, read this Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report item.

Study: C. difficile may cost hospitals more than $1 billion annually

A new study by researchers at the Washington University School of Medicine and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates Clostridium difficile-associated disease, a bacterial infection associated with recent exposure to antibiotics, may cost the nation’s hospitals more than $1 billion annually, according to AHA News Now.

Based on a retrospective study of patients at a St. Louis hospital in 2003, the researchers estimate the initial per episode cost of CDAD at $2,454-$3,240, and the cost over the subsequent six months at $5,042 to $7,179. Based on the estimated number of CDAD cases in 2003, they estimate that CDAD may have cost the nation’s hospitals as much as $1.3 billion that year.

The study appears in the Feb. 15 issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases.

Avoiding the Drama of Hospital-Acquired Infections

It often reads like a movie script: A patient comes to a hospital to be treated for an illness and then contracts a serious infection, requiring a lengthy stay, experiencing additional suffering and needing extra attention. While movies may present extreme scenarios, there’s an unsettling truth to this Hollywood scene. Patients sometimes do get sicker while in the hospital.

Today’s health care institutions are faced with increasingly complicated patient care scenarios. From multidrug-resistant bacteria and serious device-related infections to the potential for epidemics and even a pandemic, today’s health care personnel and administrators cope with many challenges to provide the best care possible and to ensure patients don’t experience an infection or other adverse outcome while in their charge.

Those challenges include a constantly changing, complex environment; more compromised patients; resource limitations; and growing regulatory requirements. The good news is that hospitals can achieve quality and safety for patients through effective and practical infection prevention and control (IPC) strategies.

For the full story from Barbara M. Soule in Hospitals & Health Networks magazine, click here.

Study says hand gel not enough to curb hospital infections

In a Nebraska hospital, medical workers nearly doubled their use of the alcohol-based gel, but their generally cleaner hands had no bearing on the rate of infections among patients.

The doctor who studied the problem pointed to many villains: Rings and fingernails that are too long and hard to clean, poor handling of catheters and treatment areas that aren't sanitized.

The results of his study appear to contradict hospital guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that say better hand hygiene - through frequent washing or use of hand gels - has been shown to cut the spread of hospital infections.

For the full story, click here.

White paper on infection control issues during hospital construction

A new white paper discussing challenges faced by hospitals during construction while trying to meet Environment of Care standards is now available online from a Massachusetts-based engineering firm.

The paper, authored by Dennis Tremblay, CFPS, a senior scientist at Needham-based EH&E, examines the process needed to comply with Joint Commission standards during hospital construction projects.

The white paper can be found online here.

[ via Accreditation Connection ]