MHA's Society for Risk Management

APIC poll reveals progress of C. diff interventions

Results from APIC’s “Pace of Progress” poll, which was conducted among APIC members, showed that more than half of respondents had adopted additional measures in the last 18 months to prevent or control C. diff.

Those who didn’t add prevention measures indicated C. diff was not a high-priority within the facility, or they had a plan to increase interventions if an outbreak occurred.

But despite an increased focus on C. diff interventions, 34% of respondents indicated that they should be doing more to prevent C. diff, and only 23% have been able to add infection control staff in the last 18 months.

Click here to read the full report.

[ via Infection Control Weekly Monitor ]

Health Care Reform: Increased Demand Intensifies Safety Concerns

As the initial waves of the newly passed health care reform law begin to ripple out, safety committee members should consider how the changes could affect environment of care and occupational health concerns. "To the extent you believe the healthcare reform law will increase the demand for services, it could certainly have the effect in the near term of straining the resources of hospitals . . . [and] that would affect [managers] who are overseeing the safety and health of employees," says Bradford Hammock, partner at Jackson Lewis, LLP, a law firm in Reston, VA, where he heads the workplace safety compliance practice group.

Read more here.

MHA hosting webinar on HITECH's HIPAA breach notification

Has your health care provider ever lost a laptop or had one stolen? Would you know whether this is a breach of a new federal law (HITECH) and would you know what to do? Would you know if it required reporting to HHS, posting information on a website, what five things must be in the breach letter to the patient, and if there needed to be media disclosure?

The Mississippi Hospital Association is hosting a webinar, HITECH: HIPAA's Breach Notification, on June 2 from 9 a.m. until 10:30 a.m. for hospital sfaff to get answers to these pressing questions.

The new regulations have exceptions and some breaches of the HIPAA privacy are not a breach requiring notification to the patient. For example, a hospital sends the discharge summary to the wrong physician. Hospitals are now required by this new federal law to educate their staff on the new breech notification rules. Hospitals will have to do a harm threshold analysis to determine if the patient must be notified of the breach.

Health care organizations and providers now face new regulations that are now in effect as HHS and the FTC has released their final regulations on breach notification under HIPAA. (Other sections became effective February 17, 2010, and more on January 1, 2011 and February 17, 2011)

The new rules will result in more enforcement of HIPAA privacy related breaches of unsecured protected health information. These new rules impose costs for expensive reporting and mitigation costs.

This is indeed a new era in protecting patient privacy! Access to a sample toolkit with sample letters to patients, setting up toll free number, notifying HHS, etc. will be provided to attendees.

Register online here. For more information, contact Karen Anding at (800) 289-8884 or kanding@mhanet.org.

Hearing examines safe patient handling and lifting standards

Most U.S. health care facilities "are not designed and constructed to accommodate the installation of fixed lifting equipment," and federal mandates for safe patient handling and lift standards will "waste a tremendous amount of health care resources," a health care facilities design and construction expert told a Senate panel on May 11. Federal mandates, like those proposed in S. 1788, the Nurse and Health Care Worker Protection Act, are not the best way to protect workers and patients, Douglas Erickson, vice president of the Facilities Guidelines Institute, told the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee's employment and workplace safety panel.

For 63 years, FGI's Guidelines for Construction and Equipment of Hospital and Medical Facilities has set consensus standards for health care facility design and for assessing and implementing safe-patient handling. That process "works without the need for a set of federal government safe patient handling standards," he said.

Erickson testified at a hearing on S. 1788, which would require the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to develop and implement a standard that would eliminate manual lifting of patients and promote the use of patient handling equipment in health care facilities.

[ via AHA News Now ]

CDC to update guidance on infection control for influenza

The CDC released a Q&A on Monday explaining its intent to update the 2009 infection control guidelines for influenza.

The guidelines will be published in the Federal Register and those interested will have an opportunity to review the guidelines and submit comments, which the CDC will consider before final publication.

Click here to read more about the updates and how they could impact future prevention efforts during flu season.

[ via Infection Control Weekly ]